Is 30 KG Punching Bag Good for Kids?

Choosing the right punching bag for your kids can be tricky; you’ve got to find which type of punching bag is best for them to train with and how heavy it should be for their size. Plus, considering they’re still growing, you want to get one that will be great for them for at least a couple of years so you can get your money’s worth and they can train safely and happily.

So which punching bag is best for kids and how heavy should it be? Let’s take a look.

Types of Punching Bags

There are several types of punching bags, each useful for a different aspect of boxing. They include:

• Body Bags
• Wrecking Bags
• Speedballs, also known as Speed Bags
• Freestanding Bags
• Heavy Bags, also known as Straight Bags

Children, beginners and professionals will benefit from using each type of bag as they all improve boxing technique, however, generally heavy bags and freestanding bags are the best for beginners and children. Heavy bags and free-standing bags are the heaviest types of punching bags so they’re great for cardiovascular exercise as you hit the bags for 10-minute rounds, moving around the bag and increasing your heart rate and blood flow.

Body bags are the best for improving the accuracy of your punches as they resemble a human form, while wrecking bags force you to improve your footwork, moving around the bag as it swings. Speed bags help improve shot speed and hand-eye coordination.

While each of these aspects of boxing is useful, they’re not the most beneficial straight away; when starting to box, you should learn how to effectively throw a punch, and once your strikes are perfect, you can increase your punching power, accuracy and combination speed. Each of these skills can be learned with heavy bags and freestanding bags, while the bags are heavy enough to effectively practise each punch without the bag moving too much.

The price of each punching bag also doesn’t change too drastically, so getting a heavy bag is worth every penny.

What Should You Fill Your Punching Bag with?

The best punching bags are sturdy without being too hard. After all, you don’t want to hurt your hands while training. Some punching bags are filled with sand and others with water, but one of the most common fillings for punching bags and grappling dummies is cloth rags.

Cloth rags can be weighty enough to be effective in a heavy bag while still absorbing some of the shock of the punch to protect your hand from harm. Grappling dummies are more used by MMA fighters for grappling and wrestling manoeuvres on the ground, so they need to be firm enough to be useful but soft enough to be manoeuvred easily.

Kids Punching Bags

Even though there are already several common types of punching bags, if your kid wants to start boxing, they should always use their own equipment and never use an adult punching bag as it could be dangerous for them. Heavy bags, in particular, are much heavier for adults than children, so kids could hurt themselves when trying to strike an adult’s punching bag.

The other types of bags could also be too heavy and swing more wildly, potentially knocking your child over, so kids should always use specialist kids’ boxing equipment.

When choosing a heavy punching bag for your child, you need to primarily consider their size and weight. Two to three feet is an ideal length for most children as it’s not so cumbersome and not too small either.

Heavy punching bags should also be around half the weight of the boxer, so kids’ punching bags tend to be around 12 kg to be heavy enough to provide resistance, and not too heavy that they could hurt themselves. 30 kg is about the weight of a young adult and adult beginner’s punching bag, so 30 kg is much too heavy for kids to use.

As your kids grow up, an 18 kg punching bag is a good step up for kids around 15 or 16 years old with good technical ability. In their late teens, they can then move on to 30 kg bags.

You may have heard the legend that Mike Tyson was hitting a whopping 300 lb heavy bag (around 136 kg) when he was just 13 years old, but that’s not something we can all achieve, and certainly not the place to start. For your kid’s safety, start them off with a lighter, 12 kg heavy bag.

How Long to Use a Punching Bag

How long you use your punching bag depends on how long you’ve been boxing and what you want to get out of your boxing training. When beginning to box, 10 minutes a day hitting the bags is a great start; you’ll definitely feel the burn in your arms and oxygenate your body as your heart pumps faster.

If you’re trying to get stronger and improve all aspects of your boxing, you can go for 20 to 30-minute sessions 4 to 5 days a week, interspersing 5-minute rounds on the bags with strength training activities to help build muscle. You can then hit the punching bag harder as you get stronger and improve your punching technique.

Strength training exercises are crucial for building muscle and you don’t need weights to do them. You and your child can do:

• Squats
• Press-ups
• Crunches
• Pull-ups

Training together will help them learn the proper technique as well as give you a healthy bonding activity which teaches them the importance of living a healthy, active life.

Where to Hang Punching Bags

One of the benefits of free-standing punching bags is that you can store them away when not in use and bring them into the middle of the room when you want to train. Other punching bags need to have a mount installed into a wall or ceiling so you can hang the bag from it.

For adults, the best place to hang a punching bag is from a support beam in your ceiling; you need a strong part of the room to withstand the weight of the bag as well as the strength of your punches. For kids it’s a little more difficult as most bags hung from the ceiling will be much too high for them to reach or train well.

When hanging a kid’s punching bag, you’ll want to use a masonry wall – one made from solid materials like concrete, brick or stone – and measure the distance of the bag so it’s a comfortable height for your child to strike. The bottom of heavy bags should be around knee height, so you can work out where to hang the bag accordingly, bearing in mind that your child will still be growing.

The Importance of Wearing Boxing Gloves

Although most punching bags are filled with rags, this doesn’t mean that they’re soft to strike. Hitting a punching bag can cause shock through your hand, wrist, arm and into your neck, so you should always wear boxing gloves to cushion the blow and absorb the shock, reducing the risk of injury.

Some punching bags come with boxing gloves, but if yours doesn’t, make sure you choose the right size gloves for your child.

You should also make sure that you get proper boxing gloves. Kickboxing gloves and Muay Thai gloves may look similar to boxing gloves, but they’re very different. Boxing gloves have the thumb tucked into a fist and padding predominantly over the knuckles to protect them, while Muay Thai gloves have the thumb set out to allow for grappling moves, and cushion spread out all over the hand to also protect the palm from kicks and punches as they catch their opponent’s strikes.

Buy the Best Punching Bags – Maxx Pro Boxing

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