How to do boxing training at home

If you’re thinking about boxing training at home, the good news is you barely need anything to start. A bit of floor space and a timer will do it.

Where most people go wrong is the structure. They put twenty minutes on the clock and just go until they’re tired. Breaking that same twenty minutes into rounds, with a proper rest in between, gets you a lot further.

TL;DR: work in rounds with a full minute of rest between them. Six rounds is about half an hour. Give each round one job, fix one fault at a time, and buy nothing for the first month.

Start with the round

A round in a professional fight is three minutes long, with a minute of rest after it. That timing comes from the unified rules published by the Association of Boxing Commissions, and most American states use those rules as they are.

If three minutes sounds like a lot right now, it probably is, and that’s fine. USA Boxing starts complete beginners on rounds of a single minute, still with the full minute of rest afterwards. So pick whichever length you can hold decent form for, and keep the rest the same.

Then set a repeating timer and forget about the clock. Working to a bell you didn’t choose is a surprisingly big part of what makes this feel like boxing rather than exercise.

A session to start with

Six rounds, which comes out around half an hour once you’ve counted the rests.

Round one, feet only. Hands up by your face, side on, and move around. Forward, back, left, right. No punching at all for the whole round. Everyone wants to skip this one and it’s the round that shows up most in how you look later on.

Round two, jab only. Lead hand out, straight back to your cheek. Pick a spot on the wall about your own height and aim at that. Going slowly is fine here.

Round three, jab and cross. Add the back hand. As the cross lands, turn your back foot so the hip comes with it. Keep half an eye on whether your feet are still moving, because they usually stop.

Round four, skipping. Or running on the spot if you haven’t got a rope. Steady, not flat out.

Round five, press ups, squats, lunges. Move between them without much of a break. Once bodyweight stops feeling like enough, our guide to strength training for boxers covers which lifts actually carry over into a punch.

Round six, core. Planks or anything you hold rather than count.

Three times a week is plenty when you’re starting. If you’d rather train more often than that, add a day of skipping and running instead of a second boxing session, because your hands and shoulders need the recovery more than your legs do. For how to space sessions like this one across a full week, see our guide to a boxing training routine at home.

Work on one thing at a time

Pick a single fault and give it the whole round. If you try to fix four things at once you’ll get nowhere with any of them.

Two problems come up for nearly everyone. The first is that your hand drifts down after each punch instead of coming back to your face. The second is that your feet stop the moment your hands get busy, which you’ll notice in round three if you’re looking for it.

Neither of these is visible from the inside. Film yourself for thirty seconds on your phone once a week and both will be obvious immediately. That’s the closest thing to a coach you’ll get for free.

Do you need something to hit?

Not for a while. Shadow boxing does more than people expect, as long as you’re picturing somebody in front of you rather than waving your arms about. Give them a height, aim at it every time, and move as though they’re moving too.

The honest limit is that hitting air teaches you nothing about how a punch feels when it lands, and it lets you get away with poor balance. So it’s worth adding a bag eventually. It just isn’t worth adding one in month one.

When to start buying things

For the first month, nothing. After that I’d go in this order.

A skipping rope first, because it’s cheap and it turns round four into proper work rather than jogging on the spot.

Hand wraps next, as soon as you start hitting anything at all, even pads held by a mate. They’re a few pounds and they protect the small bones across the back of your hand.

Gloves after that, once you’ve got something to hit. Buying gloves before you have a bag or a partner just means owning gloves.

A bag last, and only if you want one. It’s the big expense, it needs somewhere to hang, and everything above will keep you going for months without it. If you do buy one, get a heavy one. A light bag swings all over the place and you end up chasing it around the room.

What to wear

Something you can get your arms up in, and shorts or joggers that don’t pull across the knee when you drop into a stance. Try it before you leave the house rather than finding out mid round. Our Athletic range is cut close for training in, and the Essentials range is the heavier cotton for before and after. There’s more on this in our guide to what to wear for boxing.

Train barefoot or in flat trainers. Running shoes have a thick soft heel that’s built for going forwards, and boxing asks you to turn on the ball of your foot, which feels vague on that kind of sole.

What boxing training at home can’t give you

You can build a stance, learn the shape of the punches and get properly fit at home, and getting your southpaw or orthodox stance settled early is the part that pays off most. What you can’t do is learn distance or timing, because both of those need somebody in front of you actually trying to hit you. That’s what sparring is for, once you’ve got the basics down at home.

That’s worth knowing early so you’re not surprised by it. What home training buys you is turning up to a gym already able to hold a stance, throw a straight punch and last six rounds without falling apart, which puts you well ahead of most people walking in for the first time.