One aspect of boxing fitness is strength. If you want to box as a sport in Dubai you need to build strength in all parts of your body and not just the arms – strength equals punch power.

As a personal boxing coach in Dubai what do you think are the top 5 strength building workouts and can you explain how these work and why you think they are the best. (eg leg workouts, core, arms etc)

Top 5 Workout Tips

In boxing you need overall strength. Most people underestimate leg and core strength during boxing, and only focus on their arms and shoulders, which is a huge mistake.

1. Legs/lower body

As a boxer you need to be light on your feet, you need to move fast to surprise your opponent and to defend yourself.

If your legs are strong you’ll have the energy and power to move faster, and even create more power in your punches through twisting your hips.

It will be easier for you to bend/duck during defense, and to get back up quick and make your next move.

Train your legs doing squats, lunges, hip thrusts and so on.

Try to work in different tempos. It’s important for a boxer to be explosive and strong.

2. Core Workouts

You need a strong core in whatever you do, not only boxing. With a strong core your over all strength will be so much better.

In boxing you need it as a defense again, strong abs and back to resist those low punches when your opponent punch through your guards.

But once again we use the core to attack as well. Imagine rolling under a hook, and then from down low fire up a solid upper cut by rotating your upper body and use that core power. BAM!

We use our abs and core in a lot of exercises without thinking about it, but a good place to start could be static exercises like plank, balance one leg, static lifts front and back.

Of course we need to do our sit ups too.

But remember variation; front, sides, upper, lower, and different tempos again.

3. Work On The Arms

As a boxer we want strong arms. Work both your triceps and biceps to create strength.

Again we need to work in different tempos, since we want strength and muscle gain, but also explosiveness, and flexibility.

Don’t lift too heavy as a boxer, we still want to keep it light, to feel lighter over all, to be as fast as possible.

4. Shoulders

First of all, flexibility and strength in your shoulders are so important as a boxer. Our shoulders is constantly working; holding the guards up, defencing, and punching.

They are active ALL THE TIME.

Work the strength in your shoulders by lifting weights and doing static exercises, we need strength for power in our punches and to constantly holding our guards up, and trying to hold our guards strong so the opponents punches won’t get through.

Flexibility is also important – do stretching and full range movements, we want to reach as far as we can.

Speed from the shoulders can be achieved by doing explosive exercises, and again in different tempos.

5. Training Your Back

A good boxer needs a strong back. Yes, core includes back, but it’s important to split these up and work different muscle groups.

If you have a strong upper back it will help you getting more power into your punches, and a strong lower back will make you move better and add power into your rotations when punching and defending.

Really good exercises for your back, which also targets arms and shoulders (win win) is pull ups and chin ups.

You got more muscle groups working here, which is only good.

If it’s too hard in the beginning you can start using a rubber band, or even jump up from the floor, and go down slow, over and over again.