What Equipment Do I Need for Home Boxing?

With the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us realised that we can’t rely on gyms to be open all the time, and it’s even quite pleasant and convenient to work out in our own homes. But unlike yoga where you can use your body to provide sufficient weight and resistance in particular poses, boxing does require some equipment in order to train well and see the benefits of the sport.

Let’s look into what the benefits of boxing are, and what boxing equipment you need at home to reach your fitness goals.

Benefits of Boxing

Exercise has a great many benefits to our health, and boxing is no different.

Boxing improves:

• Physical health
• Mental health
• Boxing skills
• Confidence in children
• Self-defence skills

Boxing can be an intense full-body workout so it’s a great way of burning calories and staying in shape. If you want to get ripped through boxing, you’re better off doing strength training exercises to help build muscle mass, but through different boxing workouts, you can notice your body getting toned too.

What’s more, boxing isn’t a weight-bearing exercise like running, so it’s a fantastic way for older people and people with arthritic joints to keep fit.

Exercise also boosts our mood due to the release of so-called “happy hormones”, but boxing in particular can be great for mental health as it’s an intense exercise and the nature of boxing means it’s a great way to relieve stress after a rough day. Noticing yourself getting stronger and more skilful, whatever your age, will help build confidence, so it’s a particularly great sport for children, as it can grow their confidence and provide them with important self-defence skills.

This is also why many women take part in boxing, as unfortunately, many women don’t always feel safe on their own. Boxing can give women valuable self-defence skills to both protect themselves if anything terrible were to happen and give them the confidence of knowing they can protect themselves if they need to.

The important thing for all boxers is using the right equipment.

Essential Boxing Equipment

To see these great benefits of boxing, you need the right boxing equipment – and you don’t need to worry. Equipment from the best boxing brands doesn’t have to break the bank. There are small and affordable options so everyone can get involved in boxing; just make sure you have the essentials to get you started.

Gloves and Hand Wraps

For shadow boxing, you don’t need any boxing equipment, just your own hands and plenty of space so you can practise your punches without hurting yourself. But as soon as you begin to hit focus pads or punching bags, you need to make sure your hands and wrists are sufficiently protected by wearing hand wraps and boxing gloves.

When your fist makes contact, whether it’s with a sand, water or cushioned bag or mitts, or with another person, the force leaves your body and has a big impact on the item providing resistance, which sends shockwaves through your hand and arm. By wrapping your hands up, you’re adding a layer of protection to your ligaments, tendons, bones and muscles in your hands that can prevent the shock from doing any damage.

The boxing glove provides some cushion to your knuckles to absorb some of the shock and wraps tightly around your wrist to protect it from twisting abnormally and causing sprains or strains.

As a beginner boxer, you should be concentrating on your form rather than your punching power first, as if you put too much power behind a shot with poor technique, you can cause serious damage to your upper body. However, whether you’re a beginner or advanced boxer, you should always wear hand wraps and boxing gloves during your training, at home or in the gym.

Focus Pads

Some boxing equipment can be large and unwieldy and take up a lot of space, so most people can’t have them in their homes. But focus pads are the perfect alternative option.

These small, handheld, durable, cushioned pads are worn by a partner who moves with the person boxing to help them improve different aspects of their boxing technique, from speed and accuracy to footwork and muscular endurance.

If you want to start boxing with a friend to help each other lose weight or simply engage in a fun physical activity together, focus pads are the best piece of boxing equipment to have at home.

Punching Bags

If you’re serious about getting into boxing at home and you have sufficient space, straight, hanging punching bags are one of the best options for boxing equipment to have at home, as they allow you to practise many boxing skills and engage in cardiovascular exercise, without needing anybody else.

A common misconception is that regular intense rounds on the heavy punching bags will build muscle or punching power, but the fact is that you need strength training to build muscle, hitting a punching bag will just help you maximise your punching power so you have the right technique to bring your force all the way from your feet, through your lower and upper body, through to your fist to unleash a powerful punch.

The downside of hanging punching bags is that you need enough space for them to be permanently installed by a bracket attached to your walls, and of course, permission from your landlord if you’re renting.

In the case that space and permanent features are an issue, you can use a free-standing punching bag instead, as they can be moved out of the way when not needed, adjusted to the right height for each individual, and still allow you to hone your boxing skills.

It might be tempting to save on buying a punching bag and make something similar yourself, but punching bags are designed to provide enough resistance while still absorbing the shock to prevent injuries, so makeshift punching bags can greatly increase your chances of getting injured.

Boxing Extras

Boxing is a good way to lose weight if you’re training for 15 to 20 minutes every day, or 30 minutes 5 days a week, but it’s also important to engage in strength training activities like press-ups, squats and sit-ups.

Strength training exercises:

• Build muscle
• Tone muscles
• Strengthen ligaments, tendons and connective tissue as well as muscle

If you’re new to this kind of exercise, start with a few repetitions or aim to do as many reps in 30 seconds before having a 30-second break and repeating with the next exercise. When done regularly, you’ll quickly see improvements and can increase the number of reps or time period.

Or, if you’re in good shape already and want to take an extra step to improve your boxing skills, you can introduce weights into your strength training. Dumbbells come in various weights so you can start light and work your way up – starting too heavy is risky for your body and will likely tire you so much you’ll be put off training – and they’re quite small so can easily fit in most corners of your house or drawers.

Slightly bulkier but a great tool for improving your strength and boxing skills, is the weighted jacket. Appearing slightly like a waistcoat, weighted jackets add more weight to your body while leaving your hands free so you can engage in your normal activities with more resistance to increase your muscle mass further and strengthen your body. For advanced boxers or sports enthusiasts, weighted jackets are an excellent addition to your home gym.

You can also warm up for your strength training or boxing training by using a skipping rope! These simple pieces of equipment are great for practising footwork and warming up the body with cardiovascular exercise so your muscles are ready for intense training and your feet are used to moving quickly so you can get around the ring easier.

You can find plenty of skipping ropes in boxing gyms, and you should get one to use at home too.

Train Like a Boxer at Home – Maxx Pro Boxing

By ordering from the UK’s top boxing equipment supplier, you can build the perfect boxing gym in your home, so you can train like a pro without so much as stepping out of the front door.