Being in the fitness industry for years, I get the widespread stereotype that boxing is a sport for men as it’s all about fighting, getting punched, and injured.
Despite this, whenever women clients come to me asking if they should try boxing, I always say, go do it!
Top models like Adriana Lima, Karlie Kloss, and many others have put on the gloves and started to practice boxing -- no wonder when they’ve experienced the amazing physical and mental benefits of boxing for women.
Here are some positive effects girls who start boxing may expect.
Quick Summary
- The benefit of boxing for females is it improves cardiovascular fitness and overall health.
- Boxing helps ladies burn fat and enhance weight loss when regularly practiced.
- Regular boxing practice helps females improve their reflexes, and hand-eye coordination.
1. It Provides a Full-Body Workout
To generate force and power while boxing, your entire body is effectively engaged, including the muscles in your shoulders, arms, chest, back, core, glutes, hips, and legs. [1] [2]
No matter whether you’re punching a boxing bag or doing some strength training exercises like push-ups, lunges, jumping squats, sit-ups, planks, burpees, etc. as part of your boxing workout routine, all your lower and upper body muscles can get defined and toned.
Did you know that boxing works more muscles in your core than crunches or sit-ups without causing back pain? [3]
The result: a flat tummy and improved posture.
Sparring punches, side hooks, rotation movements, and leg kicks particularly target your obliques.
The best part:
Ladies concerned about getting too bulky - worry no more!
Regular, repetitive movements in boxing won’t result in bulking up, just progressive muscle toning and strengthening.
2. It Improves Your Cardiovascular Fitness and Overall Health
By igniting so many muscle groups simultaneously, boxing strengthens your heart muscle, making it work harder, i.e. increasing your heart rate to supply all the muscles from head to toe with blood and oxygen.
“A good boxing workout makes you breathe heavily and increases the rate at which your heart pumps blood around your body. Increased heartbeat strengthens your heart’s muscles and lowers your chances of developing cardiovascular complications such as heart attacks and strokes.”
- John Kalu, Personal Trainer
A stronger heart, increased cardiovascular fitness, and endurance level make you feel more energized, sleep better, and stay healthy longer.
Your blood circulation gets improved, blood glucose levels stabilized, lymphatic and immune system stronger, and more. Boxing is a great aerobic exercise that can help you prevent diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart attack, and many other diseases. [4]
3. It Burns Fat and Enhances Weight Loss
Boxing is a perfect mix of fat-burning cardio workout and muscle-building strength training. Besides providing muscle definition, strength, great physical condition, and body shape, a punching bag workout speeds up fat loss.
“An hour of boxing burns around 350-500 calories depending on your weight and the intensity of the workout. An advanced female boxer on a high intensity boxing workout can burn more than 500 calories an hour.”
- John Kalu, Personal Trainer
As a high-intensity workout that boosts your metabolism and burns fat, boxing helps you target visceral fat accumulated around your internal organs, which is a serious health risk. [5]
4. It Can Get You in Great Shape Fast
The core workout in a boxing training session can help women burn visceral fat, flatten the stomach, increase strength and stamina, i.e. get into fantastic shape quickly because it’s a perfect combination of both aerobic and anaerobic activity with a plethora of amazing benefits.
This activity is more effective and fun than just running on a treadmill, cycling, or skipping rope.
5. Boxing Improves Your Reflexes and Hand-Eye Coordination
Punching a speed bag or trying to block a punch from your opponent requires instant reactions and decisions, swift movements, excellent footwork technique to stay stable, and impeccable striking precision, among other skills.
That makes this exercise type a fantastic way of improving eye-hand coordination, balance, and reflexes.
6. Boxing Hones Your Self-Defense Skills
After several times spent sparring with an instructor or a sparring partner in a boxing class, any woman can learn some boxing techniques and tricks like knockout critical for defending herself in potentially dangerous situations in the real world.
Honing your self-defense skills makes you feel empowered, which results in higher self-esteem (bringing us to another benefit).
7. It Boosts Your Self-Confidence
Gaining more physical strength and mental endurance by pushing your limits and teaching your body to perform under pressure in boxing classes is a great way of boosting self-confidence.
Many women may undoubtedly feel healthier and more confident when they notice that they’ve learned to defend themselves, improved posture, decreased body weight, been feeling and looking good in the mirror, and many other health benefits of boxing training.
8. It’s One of the Best Stress Relievers
Another advantage female boxers may experience in a boxing gym is getting rid of stress, tension, frustrations, aggression, anxiety, and many other negative feelings after an exhausting day, helping you sleep and feel much better and more mentally powerful. [6]
“Research shows that boxing helps to relieve physical and mental stress and tension with every punch. Boxing can decrease stress hormones like cortisol and increase endorphins which is your body’s feel-good chemicals, giving your mood a natural boost, which in turn relieves stress.”
- John Kalu, Personal Trainer
9. It Helps Balance Your Hormones and Improve Mood
No one can deny that balancing hormones and improving mood is one of the most important benefits of boxing workouts for women.
Every woman knows how their hormones may go wild, depending on their age, menstrual cycle, and other factors, leaving them with unbearable mood swings and negative feelings like frustration, irritability, anxiety, etc.
Luckily, hitting a heavy bag or upper-cutting into pads helps your body re
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Ready To Reap All the Benefits From Boxing?
Unquestionably, there are a lot of fitness and health benefits of boxing for women.
This sport can be an inexpensive hobby that helps you burn fat, tone arms, legs, torso, and balance muscle growth in the whole body, strengthen bones and joints, boost confidence, feel happiness, stay healthy and super fit, meet new people during training sessions, and much more.
If you’re thinking of starting this type of exercise to shape your body from head to toe, don’t hesitate. You may expect the results fast.
References:
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2402136/
- http://europepmc.org/article/med/21845888
- https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/want-a-stronger-core-skip-the-sit-ups
- https://www.health.harvard.edu/exercise-and-fitness/punch-up-your-exercise-routine-with-fitness-boxing
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991639/
- https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/related-illnesses/other-related-conditions/stress/physical-activity-reduces-st
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