11 Surprising Boxing Health Benefits You Didn’t Know (But Should!)
In this post, you’ll learn about the health benefits of boxing.
Any good workout or exercise routine gets stale at some point.
You need to find new ways to challenge your body and still get the same health benefits of exercising.
Boxing can be a spark for people who exercise consistently and need new challenges.
Or even if you’re new to exercising, boxing’s health benefits can be your springboard into a healthy exercise routine.
Regular exercises promote weight loss and reduce blood pressure. Exercise can help decrease bad cholesterol levels in the blood.
Here’s something else (good news will follow soon):
Cardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of death in the United States. It is usually the build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries and blood clots.
Fatty deposits can damage arteries in the organs such as the heart, brain, and eyes. About 600,000 people (representing 25%) of the population die each year in the US as a result.
Now here comes the good news:
People who exercise regularly have higher chances of not experiencing cardiovascular diseases.
Boxing is a great aerobics exercise that helps improve blood circulation in the heart.
In general, aerobic exercises are excellent for preventing cardiovascular diseases. The health benefits it brings to the body, especially the heart is numerous.
In this article, we will go over some of the boxing health benefits. You’ll see why we love to add them to our morning exercise routine.
1. Improves cardiovascular health
Boxing is one exercise that uses up almost all the muscles in the body. From leg muscles to arm muscles, boxing is a pure joy full-body workout.
This cannot happen without blood in all these parts. Let me explain.
The heart is in charge of pumping blood throughout the body. It makes boxing and many more activities to happen.
With the intensity and energy needed in boxing, a lot of blood is required to do just that.
And there is no way an unhealthy or weak heart can do that.
Boxing helps the heart to pump blood containing oxygen to all parts of the body. And the exercise forces the body to adapt to new routines and movement.
With your heart working like this, you can perform just any high-intensity exercise. The leaves your heart as healthy as never before.
2. Improves bone strength
As we grow older, our bones begin to deteriorate.
This makes it very easy to get those bones broken or develop degenerative diseases such as osteoporosis.
Boxing is a bone-strengthening exercise. It uses bodyweight, which makes it good for the bones.
Boxing makes you get up on your feet, which puts weight on your feet and legs especially as you throw those punches.
In the process of punching, the arms and elbows are always in constant mobility.
There is also some element of weight-bearing in there. And that helps to further strengthen the knees, joints, and bones.
The more weight you put on your bones, the more you increase your bone mass.
And that is a win-win situation for your general body wellness and bone fitness. If there was one boxing health benefit that impressed us, this was it.
3. Burns calories
Boxing has a positive effect on cholesterol levels.
There is a significant amount of caloric burn during a boxing exercise. Depending on the weight of the individual, calorie-burning may differ.
Men burn between 462 and 500 calories. Women burn anywhere from 371 to 413 calories when hitting a heavy bag.
The speed bags burn low amounts of calories. But with some good form of regularity, the calories burned becomes significant.
4. Improves coordination
Hand-Eye coordination is one of the coordination pairs that help us a lot in our day to day activities.
Its improvement reflects in certain daily activities. Especially those activities that require reflex actions. For example, driving.
In boxing, a lot of things are going on at the same time. And all these things need equal focus and reaction almost at the same time.
The speed bag becomes vital. It suspends from a disc that continuously turns and bounces almost quickly with each punch.
The rapid movement of the bag requires that your eyes remain focused on your target. Hit the target. And at the same time, change your position if need be.
This level of coordination is priceless.
5. Teaches self-defense
Say No to violence. But be prepared to defend yourself.
Boxing doesn’t only help us in keeping the body healthy. It helps us to learn (at least the basics) of how to protect ourselves too.
We know how to throw punches with our excellent hand-eye coordination.
Our punches are good because we practice where exactly to hit in boxing. And we know where to stand too.
With all these movements and postures working together, it is easy to protect ourselves from anyone who tries to do us harm.
6. Helps control weight
Here’s one surprising boxing health benefits: weight control.
Eating excess calories is the speedway to weight gain.
When we box regularly, our bodies are set into a high metabolic state. We are speedily burning calories. Even hours after the boxing session.
As a high impact aerobics exercise, boxing turns the fats stored in our body into energy. This helps to go even more intense in our workouts.
Imagine all the fats in your pot belly and flabby arms being turned into energy.
At the end of it all, getting rid of the excess calories and fats helps you to lose belly fat.
This means, your weight is on its way to being what you have always wanted it. Or even better.
7. Increases total body strength
Normally, boxing goes hand in hand with skipping. Ask the boxers. There is a lot of jumping, kicking, and punching in there.
All these activities play critical roles in our overall fitness. Together, multiple activities help build lean muscle.
Take punches in boxing as an example. You use your upper and lower body muscles to throw punches. Repeated punches help to strengthen those muscles.
Make sure to keep a good technique throughout. Using a good boxing technique can also help you avoid lower back pain.
8. Develops toned muscles
Another of the many boxing health benefits is body tone. Let me explain.
Your arms, legs, hips are all in constant motion in boxing. Over time, this works on your muscles and leaves them toned and looking fit.
But it’s not the arms alone that gets toned. The feet are not left out in the fitness distribution business. As long as you’re throwing that punch, you’ll be on your feet.
The feet carry the body (weight) and this helps to tone the muscles there too. No part of the body is left out when boxing is involved.
9. Improves endurance
After getting the muscles healthy and toned, you have a much larger capacity to throw more punches.
And for a longer period without getting tired early. Your body will adapt to the workload.
Soon, it will be possible for you to go for several minutes punching without feeling tired.
All this doesn’t just happen on day one.
It depends on your energy levels and how your heart can work all through that. (Pro tip #1: Make sure to eat the right energy-boosting foods after your boxing session).
The heart is also accustomed to the extra work of being able to pump to much blood around the body most of the time.
All this makes it possible to endure the work routine of boxing for several hours without getting tired. (Pro tip #2: make sure to get a better night sleep)
10. Helps you destress
After a long day’s work, it is very possible to feel your muscles all tensed up.
That can be very discomforting. Boxing is one of the best ways to loosen those tensed muscles leaving you relaxed and happy.
Stress relief is one of the many health benefits of boxing.
Going another way, you’ve probably seen very angry people letting it all go during boxing in the movies. It is very real.
Boxing helps us to free ourselves from all the negative emotions and stress wreaking havoc in our bodies.
I know some people who envision the punching bag being someone they don’t like. If that helps you to give your best effort, well, why not!
Here’s something else.
Working out very hard helps the brain to produce a hormone called serotonin.
Serotonin is in charge of making the brain feel happy which has effects on our moods. You will feel happier after boxing.
11. Increases self-confidence
Boxing, in the long run, boosts our self-confidence and self-esteem.
After going through months of regular boxing workout routines, you look muscular, healthier, and fitter.
That alone leaves you feeling unstoppable and strong. We appreciate ourselves even more because we have been able to satisfy some inner need.
With all these boxing health benefits, you don’t have any excuse to not try it. Add it to your routine once a week or a month.
By all means, give it a punch and let us know how it feels.
