With more and more people conscious about their health, combat sports have gained a new level of popularity among fitness enthusiasts. With its deep cultural roots in the west, boxing has gathered a great share of those enthusiasts, but is it better than going to the gym?
Boxing is often times superior to regular fitness because it knocks out multiple fitness goals with a single regimen.
A boxing-centric workout routine may be the best solution for your health and fitness and we will explain a bit further why.
What is boxing training?
Boxing training is not only fighting. The complex movement patterns require a diverse training regimen that includes shadowboxing, heavy bag training, pad training, and partner drills. To meet the physical demands of the sport, a boxing regimen also includes calisthenics, running, skipping rope, and various forms of interval and strength training.
Many people start boxing purely for fitness reasons, and they stick to a boxing training regimen that avoids partner drills and, especially, sparring. This will get you fit, fast, agile, more coordinated, and stronger all in one training regimen that, while not impossible, is difficult to replicate on your own in a commercial gym.
What makes boxing truly better than fitness training ?
While the physical gains can be acquired by other means of training with sufficient research and effort, some things are simply better in boxing, and these are the mental aspects of it.
Stress relief– there are few better ways to let off steam than by blasting something with full force. Every type of physical training helps immensely with stress relief, but combat sports go a step further.
Mental endurance- If you take boxing more seriously, you will have to overcome a lot of mental and physical barriers. If you spar and train in a more traditional boxing gym, you will inevitably fortify your mind and learn to deal better with the obstacles in front of you both in the gym and outside of it.
Fighting skills and confidence- Fitness boxing is unlikely to help you beat a trained person in any altercation, but you will still learn how to throw a proper punch and your body will get used to the sensation of connecting with it, which is a solid basis for self-defense. And if that is important to you (which it should be) you can easily include some pre-arranged drills and sparring in your regimen and be truly prepared to defend yourself.
So, why go to a regular gym when you can spend the same amount of time boxing and reap far more benefits? And let’s not forget that boxing is immeasurably more fun than basic fitness training.
And if that hasn’t convinced you, listen to one of the best online boxing coaches:
Where boxing can’t compare with fitness training
While all the benefits listed above are undoubtedly true, boxing has its limits and it can’t serve all purposes. Some people train with the primary goal of sculpting an awe inspiring aesthetic physique or building titanic levels of strength. If that is your goal, bodybuilding and powerlifting will definitely serve you better than boxing.
To summarize, if your goal is to build a lean, mean physique with functional strength, agility, and a better mental state, go for boxing.
If you are looking to sculpt the ultimate aesthetic or pursue maximum strength, other training regimens will lead to much better results, depending on your goals.
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