Boxing Tips for Beginners (from home)

made a video about with some pointers when drilling and practising shadow boxing at home, during covid.

Throw Boxing-Feints

Don’t pass out, instead twitch your shoulders as if you’re about to throw a punch. Practice shadow boxing, and ‘pretending’ to throw punches, to keep your opponent guessing.

Sometimes you just want to twitch your shoulder as if you are about to throw a punch, other times you want to extend one of your arms a little bit.

One of my favourite things to do, is throw a feint jab, and then immediately after the feint, throw my real jab. L

Don’t Set Yourself Before Throwing a Punch

Don’t pause or set yourself, before throwing a punch.

Practice throwing when you are slightly off balance, when you’re still moving or stepping. Throw from different angles and change up the pace at which you move, throw feints and actually throw a punch.

Jab With Your Head Off Centre Line

Taller guys can get away with keeping their head dead-centre all of the time, but generally speaking, if you are stepping in with a jab, put your head down to the side – or you’ll walk onto a counter

randy couture jab
Randy (Red shorts) Moves his head to the side when punching

Keep Shoulders Relaxed When Throwing Punches

Keep relaxed and throw the punches from the foot, hips, shoulder and finally the hand.

I like to think of driving first from the foot, and then driving again from the elbow upon impact

Name Combinations

Give your boxing combinations names. For example, a jab-cross combination, could be called “2” and Jab, Cross, Hook combination could be called “3”.

When you are throwing combinations, merge the punches into one movement. So instead of thinking “jab”, then “cross”, then “hook” – just think “3”.

Also, don’t wait for one punch to finish, before throwing the next punch. As soon as you have started to throw the jab, then the punch should follow as soon as the jab has begun, and then the hook should be throw as soon as the cross has started.

Merge the punches of a 3 punch combination into one movement, instead of 3 separate punches.

About Drew

MMA, Fitness & Marketing enthusiast from North Wales, UK. A Stoic Hippy with no hair. Not to boast but - 1st Class Degree in Sports Science from Loughborough, MSc in Nutrition from the University of Liverpool. 20 years experience of weight & fitness training.
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2 Responses to Boxing Tips for Beginners (from home)

  1. Julian says:

    Thanks for sharing the go-to set of boxing drills that can be done at home during an ongoing pandemic. Shadow-boxing is great fun and helps a lot to get better at the combination of jabs and punches.

    Out of these tips, I liked ‘jab with the head off center line’ the most. Getting a fully charged counter is a nightmare in any combat sport and beginners must practice jab with this technique right from the beginning. The reason is that once you develop a habit of performing a particular combination in a specific manner, it becomes part of your muscle memory and it’s getting difficult to alter it. I have watched many encounters where fighters like Muhammad Ali, McGregor, etc. just need one counter-attacking opportunity to knock out their opponents.

    Happy Training while staying indoors!

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