Women’s boxing is going from strength to strength at the moment and dominant champions are emerging which is encouraging more and more women to get involved in the sport.
The benefits of boxing for women are endless from getting in the best shape of your life, to growing in confidence, learning how to protect yourself, having fun and reducing stress. Don’t expect an easy workout at the boxing gym as boxing is known to be one of the most intense sports on the planet, allowing you to burn over 600 calories per class. The physical and mental benefits of lacing up the gloves can be life-changing and with women’s boxing getting more and more popular, now is the perfect time to get down the gym and give boxing a try.
1. It’s Intense Exercise That Burns Fat Like No Other Sport
Boxing is an intense exercise, it’s intense action from the word go and the high levels of energy needed to make it perfect for burning belly fat and toning up the arms. You can burn from 600-800 calories in a single class, making it the best sport for weight loss that is readily available everywhere. Expect to be working or your endurance with continuance punches and your condition with plenty of squats, push-ups, and sit-ups as part of the fat-blasting boxing circuits that are part of any serious workout for boxing.
2. Valuable Self Defence Skills
Knowing how to defend yourself is a valuable skill, especially in today’s world where more and more hostility and violence have become commonplace. Boxing is one of the most effective combat sports for self-defense because it is the fastest way you can land a blow on your attacker. Boxing will teach you how to keep a safe distance, counter any attacks that come your way and land the one-two to quickly end the situation but it should only be used as a last resort.
3. Increase Confidence
Boxing has been responsible for turning many introverts into more open and confident people. It gives people a way to express themselves and by getting in better shape and looking good in the mirror, it will make you feel better inside and this newfound confidence will also show on the outside and be plain for everyone to see.
4. Stress Relief
Striking something as hard as you can feel good. The intense exercise of boxing not only gets you in great shape but it releases endorphins in the brain which makes you feel good. In today’s corporate rat race, leaving all that stress inside you can affect your mental and physical health.
We have all had times where we have been pent up with anger and frustration and letting it all out can be a great relief.
Boxing is a great way to get that release of energy, leave it all on the mat and walk out feeling better.
5. Fitness And Conditioning For Other Sports
Athletes from all different sports have been known to use boxing as a way to increase their fitness and conditioning for other sports whether it is soccer, volleyball, hockey, swimming, running or rowing. Boxing works with all of the conditioning systems, giving you an advantage in aerobic conditioning.
Aerobic conditioning: enables you to perform steady-state cardio like running for a long period of time, 1-minute plus. Like jogging or cycling, soccer, hockey or swimming.
Anaerobic conditioning: refers to your ability to perform intense exercise from 10 seconds to a minute. This is where the muscles fill with lactic acid forcing you to stop. Boxing really blasts this system and it is a huge benefit for nearly every sport.
Alactic conditioning: This is your body’s ability to perform at the highest intensity for up to 10 seconds. It’s when a boxer is looking for the knockout with one big punch. It refers to the maximum amount of force you can generate and there are plenty of boxing drills that can work on this type of conditioning.
Combat sports and boxing, in particular, offer a way to work on all three systems at the same time, so if you are in another sport or just want to get fit, it is the perfect way to do it.
6. Perfect Compliment To The Gym
More and more women are making it to the gym nowadays and we personally think it’s a great thing. The Squat racks are always filled with girls doing their squats and hit thrusts to work on them booties. Lifting weights is great for building muscle and improving the body composition but weights can get boring and eventually the women that lift will look for another way to tone further and boxing can be the perfect compliment to lifting weights.
When you get down building a great booty and sexy toned arms, cardio in the gym can be extremely boring and gym classes can be repetitive and ineffective. Boxing class will help you to tone and increase your endurance for the gym. You will also correct any posture issues and build functional strength that can be transferred into your gym efforts. With boxing, you won’t just look like you’re in great shape, you will actually be in great cardiovascular shape as well.
7. Meet New People And Make New Friends
In today’s world, everybody has their heads stuck in their smartphones and they have their headphones in shutting off the world. It can be extremely difficult to make friends in today’s world, especially if you just moved to a new place or city. Getting into a boxing gym or even a class can be a great way to make new friends and meet people. Boxing classes will mix you up with a partner and you can change partners multiple times in a class so it’s an excellent opportunity to meet new people. If you stick with and become serious you will inevitably make friends with the people you are training with and you will have a common interest to share with them’
8. It’s A Full Body Workout
Just because you punch with your hands, doesn’t mean that boxing doesn’t incorporate the full body. We power our power through our shoulders, back, chest, core, legs, and hips to generate power and force. What’s more is that boxers will use circuits and various other exercises like squats, burpees, planks, push-ups and sit-ups to have you working your full body, toning all your muscles and torching fat as you go. Boxing is a very effective full-body workout which is why so many boxers have six-packs and slim physiques.
9. It’s Great For Hormones
Women have a lot of hormones and from menstrual cycles to pregnancy, to age, these can get thrown off, leaving us feeling lousy, irritable and having mood swings. The intense exercise of boxing can help to balance our hormones and stop us from having mood swings. Increasing our strength and improving at a skill will help us to feel great and help us to balance our hormones.
10. Join Tons Of Famous Models Who Use Boxing For Fitness
We know boxing is excellent for fitness because so many fitness models have added boxing to their workout schedule from Adriana Lima to Jennifer Lopez to Gina Rodriguez, you will be joining a whos who of professional models who understand the intense benefits boxing can have on their mental and physical well being.
What To Expect When You Go To A Boxing Class
Skipping Or Jumping Rope
This may bring you back to your youth where you jumped rope for fun. What you probably didn’t know back then was that jumping rope is an excellent exercise for improving hand and foot coordination, increasing heart rate and burning calories. It is the perfect way to start a boxing class for many trainers.
Shadowboxing
Most boxing classes will start with shadow boxing for a warm-up. This is where you practice punches on the air and work on any techniques you have picked up. Don’t worry if it is your first class and you feel a bit awkward, just copy the people around you and wait for the coach to give you some direction.
Pad Drills
You will more than likely be teamed up with a partner at this stage and you should be doing some pad drills. Your partner will hold up their gloves for you to hit with some basic combos like the jab, the 1-2 and the 1-2-Hook. This will usually be mixed with another exercise like pushups, situps or burpees. You might do 1 punch – 1 push up, 2 punches – 2 push-ups, all the way up to 10 and then it will be your partner’s turn. You could do 3 – 5 rounds of this.
Bag Drills
You might then move onto the bag for some drills. This might be 1 minute of fast punches while your partner holds the bag and then switching over to hold for your partner or it could be 30 seconds of fast punches followed by 30 seconds of slow punches. At the end of the 3 minute round, you might be asked to do 20 push-ups or sit-ups.
Circuits
Boxing is well known for its circuits so don’t be surprised if there is a circuit involved in your training. This will involve moving from one workout station to another without a break. There might be 8 exercises in a circuit and you work on every station before getting a break. Stations can be anything from hitting a sledgehammer against a tire to push-ups, sit-ups, shadow boxing with dumbbells, kettlebell squats, pullups, cliff scalers, planks, kettlebell swings, and the list goes on and on. Be prepared to burn some serious calories with these.
Sparring
Towards the end of the class, the more advanced ladies might be asked to spar. This is perfect to practice your footwork and punch technique against an actual opponent. A good trainer would never throw you in at the deep end so it might just involve light body sparring or no contact at all. You should probably wear a gumshield just in case and you shouldn’t spar until you feel comfortable that you have enough skills to spar effectively.
What Do You Need To Bring To A Boxing Class
Boxing is an inexpensive hobby to get involved in. All you need to get started is a t-shirt, shorts, a towel, a pair of running shoes and a bottle of water. Most people will provide you with boxing gloves to get started although they can be a bit smelly. Once you start to make progress you can invest in everything from boxing gloves, gumshields, boxing shoes, headgear, and apparel but getting started is relatively straight forward.
Most boxing gyms will have some gear you can buy as well so check out your local clubs’ shop.
Conclusion
Getting into boxing could be the best the decision you make in your life and you could even join the list of great champions like Clarissa Shields, Katie Taylor, and Amanda Serrano if you are good enough and boxing can actually provide a lucrative career for many females boxers as they get on PPV shows and top main events. If you are thinking about getting started, you should definitely take the leap and get down to a boxing gym as quickly as you can.