If you look at a boxer on television, you'll probably look at an athlete with a "cut" physique and defined muscles in places you didn't even know you had muscles. This can lead you to believe that boxing training alone can get you ripped. However, those pro athletes do more than just box to get in the shape they're in. Boxing certainly won't hurt your efforts at getting a defined physique, but it may not be enough on its own.
BOXING WORKOUT BASICS
Professional fighters train for hours every day, but a typical boxing class lasts an hour for two or three sessions each week. In a boxing class, you can expect to divide your time between some warm-up and cool-down activities, developing your skills on focus mitts and punching bags, conditioning drills and sparring. Different coaches will use different proportions of and methods for each, but most programs will involve each of those elements.
RESISTANCE EXERCISES
Resistance exercises build and define your muscles by resisting their motion. When this happens, you suffer microscopic tears in your muscle fibers, which heal back thicker and stronger like your skin after a cut. Calisthenics, bag work and weight exercises like dumbbells, kettlebells and medicine balls are all common sights in a boxing workout. These can help you develop the musculature you need to become ripped.
CARDIOVASCULAR TRAINING
Getting ripped is more than just developing your muscles. You also have to shed fat to make that muscle visible to the world. That means burning calories with exercises like sparring, bag work and conditioning drills. According to fitness website HealthStatus, the activities in a 60-minute boxing class will burn about 500 calories per hour in a 160-pound person. That represents about a pound of fat for every seven sessions.
SUPPORT ACTIVITIES
If you go to boxing training every day, but eat fast food and sweets in quantity, you'll never get ripped. Similarly, boxers develop their physique as much through hours of running or cycling between training sessions as they do in their boxing workouts. Whether or not your boxing workouts will get you ripped depends less on what you do during the hour of class than on what goes on during the other 23 hours in a day.
Posted in: Boxing