Can You Get In Good Shape With Indoor Punchbag?

Boxing is a great way to stay in shape, and one of the big components of boxing training is hitting heavy punching bags. A mainstay of boxing gyms, the heavy punching bag is also a great addition to your home if you want to stay fit in the comfort of your own home or simply save a few pennies on a gym membership.

But how good are punching bags for your health, and is there any advantage to training indoors versus outdoors? Let’s take a look.

Benefits of Hitting a Heavy Bag

Hitting a heavy bag may seem like a tough activity, so if you’re just starting to box, you don’t need to put pressure on yourself to do 30 minutes a day; 5 to 10 minutes a day for beginners is enough. If you’re more practised in boxing, you can do 4 to 5 sessions a week of 15 to 20 minutes each to get the most out of your training and stay in great shape, but even just a little each day will improve your health in numerous ways.

Improving Overall Fitness

Punching bag training is great cardio; you’re on your feet, moving around the bag, striking hard and practising your combinations, breaking a sweat and breathing heavily as you utilise your power and endurance. This in itself is great for your body, pumping oxygen around to your organs and burning calories.

In just half an hour of hitting a punching bag, it’s estimated that a person weighing 60 kg can burn 227 calories. Paired with a healthy diet and the recommended calorie intake of 2,000 calories for women and 2,500 for men, using a punching bag can easily help you lose weight by getting you moving and burning more calories than you’re consuming i.e. in calorie deficit.

What’s more, while hitting a punching bag can help you lose weight, it can also help you tone your muscles. Hitting a bag doesn’t increase your muscle strength, but it does help you harness your power and lose body fat. As you lose fat from around your arms and belly, your arm muscles will begin to show more prominently, as will your abs.

The more time you spend regularly hitting a punching bag, the easier it will become, showing you that you’re getting fitter and improving your muscular endurance and cardiovascular fitness.

Improving Boxing Techniques

As well as getting into great shape with a punching bag, you can also improve your boxing skills. Hitting a punching bag regularly will help you improve:

• Punching power
• Shot accuracy
• Shot speed
• Reaction time
• Combinations
• Footwork

Each of these skills is integral for a good boxer to have under their belt, so having a punching bag in your home to practise with at least a few days a week will improve your boxing techniques and overall performance. If you’re wondering if punching bags are worth it, the fitness and technical aspects can give a resounding yes.

Improve Mental Strength and Wellness

Exercise is a great benefit to our mental health and an important part of our lives, and boxing is one of the best types of exercise for this.

When you’ve had a rough day at work or school, or you’ve had a confrontation with someone, it can ruin your mood and cause a lot of stress. If you’ve got a lot of stress built up or pent-up anger, there’s nothing better than coming home to wreak havoc on your punching bag. Exerting yourself and using up physical energy as well as getting out your aggression in a useful, enjoyable and harmless way is a fantastic way of dealing with negative emotions.

Moreover, as you practise boxing and see yourself improve over time, both technically and physically, it’s very rewarding. Resilience and persistence are important characteristics and can be taught through many combat sports including boxing. Try your hardest and see how you get better over time; it’ll make you feel proud of your hard work, and improve your mental strength towards other aspects of your life as you’ve proven to yourself that you can take on and overcome challenges.

Indoor vs. Outdoor

You’ll find most punching bags are located indoors, in gyms or people’s homes and garages as it’s the most practical way of mounting them. However, there are benefits to having your punching bag indoors and outdoors.

Firstly, having your punching bag inside is the most practical. If the weather outside is bad, it doesn’t matter; your boxing equipment is safely in the house or garage, so you can train whenever you want. However, with heavy punching bags, you can put them up and take them down relatively easily. So if you want to keep one outside, it’s best to store it inside and hang it on your harness attached to a strong tree branch when you intend to train.

By training outside, you may be burning more calories. While you can get in excellent physical shape by training with a punching bag indoors and outdoors, studies have found that such sports as running burn more calories outside than inside as it requires more ankle flexion on uneven surfaces. The same may be true of boxing outdoors as you manoeuvre around your bag, but equally, it may risk ankle injury if the ground is very uneven and causes you to trip or twist your ankle.

Training outside may also have a more positive impact on your mental health. Being outside, especially in green or natural environments positively impacts our mental well-being, relieving stress and making us feel more at ease. So, attaching your punching bag to a tree outside may help improve your mood.

However, many people want to have their punching bags at home so they can train without having to go out, or because they may feel self-conscious training in public gyms. Having your punching bag indoors will, therefore, make many people more relaxed and help them get into good shape comfortably.

Which Punching Bag is Best?

This blog has focused on heavy bags because they are the most popular across the board, from beginners to pros like Mike Tyson. However, there are several other types of punching bags that are also beneficial for boxing training, including:

• Speedballs, or speed bags
• Body bags
• Wrecking bags, similar to maize bags
• Free-standing bags

Sometimes grappling dummies are included amongst punching bags, but even though they’re made with the same materials as punching bags, they’re more often used by MMA and Muay Thai fighters to practise grappling moves.

Aside from the heavy bag, which is great for all-around use, the best punching bag to have at home is the free-standing bag. Used in a similar way to heavy punching bags, free-standing punching bags are possibly more practical as they don’t have to be installed permanently in your house; they stand alone, so you can move them into storage when not in use.

Whichever type of punching bag you choose, a high-quality, durable, decent punching bag shouldn’t cost more than £100 for a smaller bag, or £150 for a larger one.

Getting the Right Gloves

Sometimes your punching bag will come with boxing gloves; you can choose your size according to your weight, but the manufacturer will supply you with the right kind for use on the punching bag. If they don’t come together, you should buy yourself a pair of boxing gloves, as you should always wear gloves while training. The bag itself doesn’t provide enough cushion on your punch, so you need the gloves to absorb some of the shock and prevent injuries to your hands.

If you’re also practising martial arts, you may be tempted to save money and use your Muay Thai gloves as boxing gloves, but this should be avoided as they’re not the same. Boxing gloves have the cushion over the knuckles, while it’s spread evenly over Muay Thai gloves for safer training in each sport.

Buy the Best Punching Bags – Maxx Pro Boxing

Maxx Pro Boxing proudly manufactures and distributes professional quality punching bags across the UK so everyone can get in great mental and physical shape from boxing training. Browse our range of punching bags today!