Life is all about striking the perfect balance. Of course, this can be tricky to do with our hectic schedules. Between work, family life, keeping in touch with friends, hobbies and finding the motivation to make the most of your downtime – it can certainly be hard to squeeze everything in and keep it all in balance. But trying is the main thing. We’re doing well as long as we’re putting in some effort to keep things balanced each week.
And exercise is definitely something you should factor in when trying to live a balanced lifestyle. Exercise has many benefits, including improving your immunity, supporting your longevity, facilitating weight loss, boosting your mental health, and so much more. And one form of exercise that is a great full-body workout is boxing. This informative article will share seven reasons why boxing is an excellent physical activity to practice each and every week. Read on to learn about how you can improve your health with nothing but your fists, some basic boxing equipment and a fighting spirit!
1. Boxing is Excellent Cardio for Burning Calories
Did you know boxing is a superior form of cardiovascular exercise or cardio for short? The high-intensity nature of boxing training has the potential to improve your resting heart rate and muscular endurance, which can help you become fitter faster – and all with minimal impact on your knees!
When you’re in the full flow of a boxing workout, you can burn approximately thirteen calories a minute, which is on par with running and cycling. That is between 250-300 calories for a half-hour session and 650-800 for a full hour. This is an excellent burn rate. If you’re looking to shed a few extra kilograms and gain a bit more muscle definition in the process, then a boxing training regime should be able to help you reach virtually all your personal fitness goals.
2. Boxing Works Every Muscle in Your Body
Some folk say boxing is primarily an upper-body workout, but this is actually incorrect. You’ll be using your legs and hips to drive your punches and dancing around on your feet, giving your legs a thorough workout right alongside your arms. Your core strength is also improved, as is your posture, as boxing stances require fighters to keep a straight back in order to maintain maximum power.
Simply put, boxing is a full-body workout by its nature, and especially so if you combine your footwork and punching by practicing some dynamic boxing combos. You can rely on a boxing training routine to boost your strength and overall fitness, including building your hand-eye coordination, reactivity, balance and agility.
In addition to this, you can naturally build strength with boxing without having to lift weights. So if you’re not a fan of weightlifting, then why not try adding a little bit of boxing to your weekly training schedule?
3. Boxing Relieves Stress
One of the reasons some people exercise is because physical movement can be a major stress reliever. Suppose you have a busy job and a hectic family life. Managing a family alongside a 9-to-5 can naturally come with a fair amount of stress. Thankfully, boxing is arguably one of the most effective physical stress relievers there is.
Hitting a boxing bag or sparring with a partner can be an excellent way to manage anger and frustration healthily. Imagine letting all your frustrations out with your fists instead of carrying them around with you from day to day. Boxing is undoubtedly a positive method for channelling and processing these emotions, effectively supporting your mental health. As boxing will also build your confidence and discipline like other physical activities, it’s safe to say that jumping into this sport will have a positive flow-on effect for the rest of your life.
There is also some evidence to suggest that rigorous exercise, such as boxing, can help alleviate the impacts of anxiety, depression and other mental health issues. Regular boxing exercise might be a great practice to take up if you live with any of these mental health concerns.
4. Boxing Improves Coordination
Remember that famous Muhammad Ali quote: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”? Well you’d be surprised by just how accurate this quote actually is.
Boxing is a fantastic way to improve your hand-eye coordination and agility while still having a bucketload of fun. To be a successful boxer, you need to learn how to land punches on your punching bag or pads or even on an opponent, meaning you must actively improve your coordination and work on your positioning. So it goes without saying that by practising your punches and putting in a good couple of sessions in the ring every week. You can become more agile and coordinated over time.
5. Boxing Improves Your Heart Health
Heart disease is a leading cause of death worldwide. With millions of people possessing a genetic predisposition to this horrible condition and many others being at risk due to their lifestyle habits, finding the right physical activity for you could truthfully be a matter of life and death. Thankfully, boxing can offer some benefits here too.
As boxing is a high-intensity cardio workout, you’re training your body (and your heart) to sustain an intense period of activity. Fitness research has proven that practising high-intensity exercises can drastically decrease your risks of experiencing heart disease. This means that your boxing training may even lower your risk of suffering an adverse heart event in later life, such as cardiac arrest.
6. Boxing Improves Your Sleep Quality
Speaking of the benefits of high-intensity workouts, anybody who’s ever taken a gym class in the evening may know all too well that a good night’s sleep typically follows a heart-pumping bout of physical activity. This is never a coincidence, as high-intensity activities like boxing can actually improve your sleep quality.
This is precisely what makes boxing an ideal exercise choice for those who suffer from insomnia or disturbed sleep. The more you push in your boxing training, the more physically tired you’ll be. You’ll notice an uptick in your sleep quality, and you’ll be able to sleep for deeper, longer and awake feeling refreshed and restored every day.
7. Boxing Increases Alertness and Focus
Finally, one thing that we should all be able to agree on is that boxing is a mental challenge as well as a physical one. By working on complex combos of punches and legwork, you need to be alert and focused. You also need to have a good sense of rhythm, as this will help you master complex boxing combos and perhaps even react to your opponent’s movements.
Even if you don’t have these qualities, boxing workouts can find a way to cultivate them within you. This fast-paced exercise will increase your focus and alertness, which can in turn nurture your sense of rhythm and reaction times. And the best thing is that these qualities can be easily translated into other sports, like tennis, swimming, or even dance!
A Sporty Summary
This informative article has shared six reasons boxing is an excellent full-body workout. From burning calories rapidly to working the main muscle groups and decreasing stress, you can see why boxing is an excellent choice of workout. It will also improve your coordination and sleep quality and increase your alertness and focus.
So why not pick up a pair of boxing gloves and see what you can gain?