The Best Boxing Equipment For Home Fitness
Not everyone has access to a local boxing gym. Besides, even if they do, there may be a multitude of reasons why they don’t or can’t train there. Thankfully, boxing is not just a combat sport, with many people choosing to train purely for fitness. In any case, training at home is good for someone who isn’t quite sure whether they like boxing enough to justify paying for a gym membership just yet. Boxing at home does not require too much space. An area the size of a single car garage is enough to have a punchbag, as well as be able to practice shadowboxing and jump rope. If you are going to spar at home, you will of course need a bigger space than this.
Obviously, there are a multitude of head injuries you can suffer from traditional boxing sparring. If you are training boxing purely for fitness, there is absolutely 0 risk of getting hit in the head. If you wrap your hands properly, you also shouldn’t really sustain any kind of finger, knuckle, or wrist injuries either.
Boxing at home is a great cardio and fat loss exercise since it requires large amounts of energy to jump rope and hits bags. Not only this but there are also other benefits other than fitness for boxing at home such as muscle conditioning and hand-eye coordination.
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Best Equipment For Boxing At Home
Everlast Low-Top Boxing Shoes
Low-top boxing shoes are highly recommended for home boxing workouts, simply because high top shoes are more expensive and not necessary. Since your general movement and footwork will be slower than sparring an opponent, your risk of turning your ankle is very low. In a controlled setting, the extra protection is simply not needed.
Furthermore, low-top shoes are a lot quicker to take on and off since you don’t have to spend an excessive amount of time doing up all of the laces. In all honesty, a pair of running shoes are good enough for using a punch bag at home, but won’t give you the lightweight movement and grip for pivoting on the floor quite as much.
If you’ve done any other kind of sport, you will find that boxing shoes are a very tight fit compared to other disciplines. This is because boxing shoes are designed to make sure that your risk of injury is minimized if you slip or misstep. For this reason, if you don’t like tight shoes and don’t move around too fast, running shoes might be a better choice – depending on your exercise intensity.
RDX Hand Wraps
When hitting a heavy bag, or even a lightweight speed bag, it is important to wrap your hands. Hand injuries in boxing are extremely common. If you are a boxing beginner, your knuckles will not be conditioned at all for the punishment they will receive.
Wrapping your hands is a no brainer since you’re going to save yourself from being in pain. As hand wraps are inexpensive, you’re also going to save yourself a lot of money by avoiding a trip to the emergency room by protecting your fists from unnecessary damage.
RDX hand wraps are good since they are fast to put on and take off. Hand wrapping for a professional boxing match may take 20 minutes to make sure everything is perfect. But to train in a home gym, this is completely over the top. Since RDX wraps are already padded around the knuckles, you can put them on and take them off within 1 minute. They are also good value for money and a cheap way to keep your hands protected.
Everlast HydroStrike Water Bag
It goes without saying that if you’re boxing at home – you will need something to punch. Shadowboxing is good for movement and fitness, but it won’t help condition your knuckles and arms for landing punches.
The Everlast Hydrostrike allows you to have a hanging bag in your home, with no issues about how you are going to fill it. Traditionally you would have to find a lot of rags or sand to fill up a punchbag. As most people don’t have instant access to these materials, this adds a hidden cost to buying a punchbag. However, as everyone has water – the Hydrostrike is very simple to fill up and install.
As the Hydrostrike can take up to 100lbs of water, you know that this is not a flimsy or lightweight bag. This is a product that will not move around too much whilst you hit it, whilst still being somewhat forgiving on your wrists as you land punches.
Sanabul Boxing Mitts
Should you plan on training at home with another person, boxing mitts are an essential piece of equipment. Instead of hard sparring, mitts allow you to throw full power punches which can land on moving targets.
Made of tough leather which encases impact protecting foam, you do not need to be concerned about hurting your hands whilst holding the mitts. As Sanabul is a brand that is used by professionals in both boxing and MMA, you can be sure that their mitts are made to a high standard and not just a cheap alternative with a logo printed on it.
In short, boxing mitts are very useful for interactive and social training. If you plan to work out completely by yourself, boxing mitts are useless since you have nobody to hold them for you. However, if you have a friend or relative who trains alongside you – they are a must.
WOD Nation Jump Rope
There are only a few ways to truly improve your cardio for boxing. These include running, long sparring rounds, and using a jump rope. As you can use a jump rope by yourself inside (provided your ceiling is high enough), this is a good reason to use one in your home gym.
Jumping a speed rope will not just help your cardio, but will also help with your footwork for boxing in general. Being able to move your feet at a fast pace is essential if you want to improve your overall level of skill.
The WOD Nation rope is made of steel but covered in plastic, which makes it ideal for beginners. A nice weighted rope is essential to build up speed and ensures that it will not twist or kink when you don’t want it to. It feels lightweight, yet is easily heavy enough to exercise properly with. You will find that when using a jump rope for the first few times, you will whip your own legs. This can be painful and stings quite a lot, but the fact that the steel is completely covered makes sure that you don’t get cut or badly bruised.
KNUX Hand Weights
Perfectly designed to fit around a closed fist. KNUX hand weights are available in a variety of different colors and sizes. When training shadowboxing, or simply a boxercise fitness workout, having weights on your hands makes it a whole lot harder.
Using hand weights will seriously condition your entire upper body as each movement you make is made increasingly more difficult by carrying extra weight. When you box without using hand weights, it will feel a lot easier and you will find that you’re able to throw a lot more punches without getting tired, compared to not using hand weights previously.
Lastly, hand weights are one of the only pieces of boxing equipment that can be used outside the gym as well. Since they are small and easy to hold, you can run whilst holding these weights, which will make your exercise more difficult too. Overall, they are great for increasing your strength and stamina, particularly conditioning your arms and shoulders.
