boxing training

Beginners Boxing Tips to Improve Your Technique

In any sport, it is crucial to master the basics before you can advance. Boxing is no exception to this and there are a few fundamental techniques and tips you can use to practice and improve your skills. We have put together a list of tips to help you master your boxing technique!

Practice Your Footwork

Often when people start boxing, all they think about is throwing powerful punches. However, a crucial part of boxing is your footwork, particularly for beginners. During a fight you constantly need to change speed and direction. You want to be agile with your feet down, so you are ready to attack or move at any second.
You should focus on taking smaller steps as these require less energy and are much easier to control. Don’t worry about the flashy footwork you see from more advanced boxers – this will come naturally with practice. Instead, focus on being light and active on your feet. Improve your footwork technique with activities such as shadow boxing, agility ladders and skipping ropes. You can even practice your footwork at home – so you have no excuses!

People Practicing Boxing Technique

Boxing Training with A Skipping Rope

As mentioned above, skipping is a great exercise to practice your footwork. It can also help improve your balance, agility, muscle endurance, muscle conditioning and more. The great thing about this exercise is that it works out the whole body and mimics the muscles used in boxing. Unlike other leg exercises, which are not as fast and don’t have as many repetitions, jumping rope causes the muscles in your legs to continually contract in tiny bursts. This helps to build your leg muscles and improve your footwork agility.
With skipping exercises, you can practice relaxing your breathing so that you don’t get as tired. This technique can be used in your boxing practice, to allow you to throw hundreds of punches without fatiguing.

Boxing training using a skipping rope
Control Your Breathing

Breathing is a vital part of your boxing strategy. If you find yourself getting tired quickly, this could be due to incorrect breathing. You need to use different breathing techniques for different types of moves. For example, a slower move will require slower and deeper breaths, whereas, quick bursts of movement will require a sharper breather.

Proper breathing is essential to optimise your energy expenditure. This will ensure that you are saving your energy and not wasting it on inefficient breathing. Proper breathing techniques can also help to maximise the power behind your punches. You should exhale with your punch for more control and to reduce your expended energy. Then breath in immediately afterward to feed oxygen back into the muscles.

Relax Your Body

Often when beginners start out boxing, their bodies are very rigid as they are in a defensive mode. However, a stiff body restricts your body movement and reduces your agility and speed. When your box, let your body be loose and relaxed while you remain focused – don’t clench your jaw. This can be difficult as a beginner as often you will feel more nervous and uncomfortable in the ring. However, by being aware of this and practicing your breathing, you can work to stay more relaxed.

boxing training
Remember to Practice, Practice, Practice!

We have heard it all before, but this point remains truer than ever. Like any skill, boxing requires hard work and discipline. Often this includes doing more “boring” and repetitive tasks over and over to improve your skills. We may want to jump straight in the ring, but first, you need to work on your core skills. Most of today’s greatest boxers aren’t doing anything crazy or new – they have learned the basics extremely well and execute them better than their opponent. One of the best ways to improve your boxing technique is to master these basics extraordinarily well. Even if you are not a beginner, it is useful to revise these tips to improve your skills. Remember that consistency is key.

These tips can help you improve your boxing skills and technique. If you are interested in starting beginners boxing classes, we offer boxing in Perth. Get in contact for your free trial class and start training today!