Legs, contrary to most people’s belief, are a critical muscle in boxing. How strong your legs are is vital and impacts everything in your boxing skills, ranging from how you get hit to how powerful your punches are.
That’s why all professional boxers have strong legs and don’t skip leg day, and neither should you.
I’ve decided to write this article for boxers who want to increase the strength of their legs. The exercises in this article will also help build muscle in said muscles, hitting two birds with one stone.
Some of the exercises I list will not relate to boxing but will impact your game. For instance, one of the exercises will be leg extensions, which have no link to punching. But it will improve your punching power indirectly over time.
Exercising, however, is only a part of the equation. Instead, you should also eat and sleep sufficiently. If you want to read about the complete eating guide for boxers, follow the link to an article of mine on the topic.
According to a study: “in experienced boxers, the legs contributed 38.6% of total punching force compared with 32.2% for the intermediate and 16.5% for the novice boxers.”
You can contribute anywhere from 16.5 to 38.6 percent of your punching force from your legs. If that isn’t enough to get you out doing leg day, I don’t know what will.
#1 – Squats
The first exercise will be squats. Many bodybuilders call the squats the mother of all workouts, as it’s exceptionally effective.
The squat works the following muscles:
- Hip muscles.
- Calves.
- Hamstrings.
- Obliques.
- Glutes
- Quads
- Core
All these muscles have some effect on your punching power. Thus, squatting consistently and progressively overloading your workouts will directly relate to your punching power.
Here’s how you squat:
- Stand up straight
- Place your hands straight and forward to keep your balance
- Start coming down with your glutes and place your weight on your heels
- Come down until an angle of 90 degrees is created
- Return to your initial standing position
If bodyweight squats are easy, I recommend adding weight to your workouts. It can be as small as 15 lbs and as high as 500 lbs.
It doesn’t matter how much weight you add; what matters is that your workout will be challenging. If you have an easy time in your activities, you can’t possibly expect growth to occur.
According to a medical article: “Progressive overload is when you gradually increase the weight, frequency, or number of repetitions in your strength training routine. This challenges your body and allows your musculoskeletal system to get stronger.”
Likewise, if you want to learn about different feet positions for squats and their effects on your training and results, follow the link to read a research paper on the topic.
#2 – Lunges
The second exercise boxers should perform to strengthen their lower body is lunges. While the squat works more efficiently on your legs, including both exercises will ensure a complete workout routine.
Lunges are a critical exercise to perform regularly to strengthen your legs. Similar to the squats, they will directly relate to your punching power.
Here are the muscles that the lunge work:
- Glutes
- Hamstrings
- Quads
- Calves
These muscles are the most prominent ones in the leg. As a result, working on them by performing the lunge—will strengthen your legs and boost your boxing skills.
Of course, you need to remember the rule of progressive overload. You can hold weights to add difficulty to your workout.
This is how you perform it:
- Stand up straight
- Take a step forward with either one of your legs
- Lower down to a degree of about 90 degrees with your forward foot
- Come back up
- Repeat with the other side
The thing you should anticipate when lunging is working on every muscle in your lower body. Most leg exercises won’t have nearly the same effect as the lunge.
As such, it’s a must in every leg workout, especially for boxers who want to strengthen and add muscle to their lower body.
#3 – Romanian deadlift
The Romanian deadlift is a favorite of mine I include in all my leg workouts. So naturally, I have a much easier time presenting and recommending it to you.
The hamstrings are a major muscle group in your lower body. Strengthening it will directly link to an increase in your punching power.
The Romanian deadlift works explicitly on your hamstrings. Therefore, it would be best if you used a barbell to add more weight to increase its effectiveness.
Here are the muscles the Romanian deadlift works:
- Glutes
- Hamstrings
- Core
- Back
Indeed, the Romanian deadlift will also work some muscles in your back, such as the trapezius. While it’s an advantage, this article focuses more on the lower body, so let’s stick to our topic.
This is how you perform the Romanian deadlift:
- Stand up straight
- Add weight with a barbell if you’d like
- Lower down while pushing your glutes backward
- Lower until you reach your maximum hamstrings stretch
- Return to your standing position
The Romanian deadlift focuses more on the hamstrings than on other muscle groups. That’s why it’ll be best to include more exercises if you include the Romanian deadlift in your workout routine.
#4 – Punching
The 4th exercise might surprise some of you; it’s punching. Punching will help you strengthen your legs and even build muscle in your lower body.
How is that even possible, one might ask? It’s possible because punching works most of your lower body. As a result, if you add enough difficulty, it’ll eventually strengthen your legs and may initiate hypertrophy (the muscle-building process in our bodies.)
Here are the muscles that punching works:
- Quads
- Hamstrings
- Calves
- Back
- Shoulders
- Arms
- Core
As you can see, punching works more muscles, using your entire body. It’s important to mention that the two most prominent muscles that work while punching are the quads and hamstrings.
You can include punching in your training routine in many ways, including pad work, sparring, and heavy bag sessions. The primary advantage is that you’ll strengthen your lower body while honing your boxing technique.
So, punching should be a must for any boxer that wants to strengthen one’s muscles. Some people even hold weights while punching to get that progressive overload rolling.
Here’s how to punch:
- Stand up straight
- Get into your fighting stance
- Start throwing punches
- You can throw a jab, cross, hook, or an uppercut
- Return to your fighting stance
- Repeat
It also has various health benefits, according to an article: “using a punching bag to exercise helps burn calories and stave against heart ailments, blood vessels, and heightened blood pressure.
Lastly, if you want to become a better puncher, I wrote an article on the beginner’s guide for boxing. Follow the link to learn the basics of boxing.
#5 – Sparring
The fifth exercise that’ll strengthen your leg so you can punch harder in boxing is sparring. Sparring is perhaps the closest you’ll ever get to a real fight in your training.
While it’s not a leg exercise, it works your legs like punching. You’re constantly moving and being active while sparring. Likewise, you’re also punching, which we have already understood works the legs.
As a result, your lower body will strengthen if you spar constantly. Here are the muscles sparring works:
- Hamstrings
- Quads
- Core
- Hips
- Calves
- Back
- Shoulders
- Arms
You’ll essentially be working most of your body when you spar. Therefore, it can be a fantastic workout for those trying to strengthen and condition their entire bodies and not only their lower body.
However, sparring can be scary. For many boxers, it’s the first time facing another human being in a fight. As a result, it can be an intimidating experience for those not as eager to fight someone else.
But it’s the most rewarding experience in boxing when examining its results and long-term benefits. Your boxing skills will drastically improve as you will work on every aspect of boxing while getting an excellent lower-body workout.
To spar, here’s what you need to do:
- Find a training partner close to your skill level
- Wear hand wraps, boxing gloves, and headgear
- Find a room with plenty of space, preferably a boxing ring
- Start fighting
- Begin slowly and lightly at first
- Amp up the pace once you feel ready
#6 – Leg extension
This next exercise will return to the type of workouts we started with. Hence, let’s examine a common exercise that works explicitly for the quads.
Thus far, we have not mentioned an exercise that works explicitly for the quads. We did, however, mention the Romanian deadlift, which works the hamstrings.
But it’s time for us to work the quads. So, here are the muscles that the leg extension works:
- Quads
The quads are the primary muscle they work on. But, of course, many secondary muscles also take part when you perform the leg extension. Unfortunately, their involvement isn’t enough to mention them on the list.
The quads are a primary working muscle when you punch. Thus, the leg extension directly impacts your punching power if you stay consistent enough and progressively overload weight.
Here’s how to perform the leg extension in a machine:
- Sit on the leg extension machine
- Adjust the seat and the machine until you’re comfortable
- Extend your leg upward while keeping your toes facing up
- Extend until a full stretch in your quads
- Return to the starting position
The quads play a significant role in your boxing training. So it’ll be best if you strengthen them if you’re trying to increase your punching power.
#7 – Bike workout
It’s time we present the last exercise you can perform to condition and strengthen your legs for boxing. However, before we reveal what it is (although you already know it from the title), I want to mention how hard it is.
I wouldn’t say I like this exercise because it’s more challenging than any of the ones I’ve listed thus far, even more than squats.
This exercise is cycling or bike workout. Cycling works your entire lower body while making you sweat like never before. In addition, it burns plenty of calories, making it suitable for quickly losing body fat. You can burn up to 1020 calories per hour while cycling!
Here are the muscles that bike workout works:
- Quads
- Hamstrings
- Glutes
- Calves
- Core
In short, it works your entire lower body. Likewise, you’ll feel the burn when you do it, a symbol of future muscle growth. It will 100% strengthen your lower body.
Cycling is one of the best workouts to strengthen your lower body and increase your punching power. It will work your entire lower body, thus strengthening your legs and directly increasing your punching power.
Here’s you to do a bike workout:
- Find an actual bike or a cycling machine
- Start cycling
- Find the pace and difficulty you want to keep with
- Set a specific goal (number of calories, time, distance…)
- Meet that goal!
Here’s an intense bike workout I recommend you follow to strengthen your lower body, thus, your punching power.
Leg training routines for leg explosiveness and strength for boxing
A training routine is critical to strengthen your legs and increase your punching power in boxing. The last thing you want is to step into the gym and not know what you’re about to do.
That’s typically what differentiates between a good and a bad workout. So, knowing how to train is vital in boxing and lifting weights.
This section will discuss and examine two training routines that’ll help you strengthen your legs and increase your punching power.
Without further ado, here they are:
Routine #1 – Squat + Lunges
Doing enough repetitions is critical in ensuring muscle growth. So, if you want to strengthen and build muscle in your lower body, you must train them enough times.
Squat + Lunges is the first training routine we’ll discuss. You’ll ensure muscle growth if you do both exercises, which work on most of your lower body.
You’ll have a much more effective workout if you do both, as they work on similar muscles.
It would be best if you did enough sets. A good rule of thumb is to do between 3-5 sets for each exercise. If you’re doing leg day, you can even incorporate more activities, such as Romanian deadlifts and calf raises.
But, if you manage to do 10 squats and lunges, you’ll see growth in the long term, assuming you stay consistent and dedicated to your training.
Routine #2 – Cycling + Punching
The following routine I want to mention is the combination of cycling and punching. While punching alone will strengthen and condition your lower body, it might not contribute to muscle growth.
This is where cycling comes into the equation. It completes punching by working your entire lower body to ensure you’ll see improvement.
You start with at least 15 minutes of cycling (either intense or calmer), and you continue with a heavy bag session of at least 10 minutes.
The entire workout lasts 25 minutes, but you can do even more. You should include various breaks whenever you feel the workout is too intense.
Do boxers skip leg day?
The legs are the driving force of punches, contrary to what most people think. As a result, strengthening and conditioning them—is critical to increasing your punching power.
Boxers don’t skip leg day because the lower body is the force behind your punches. While most people think that the arms, back, and shoulders are the driving force of your punches, your lower body is. As a result, working to condition and strengthen your legs—is critical to being a solid boxer.
Many people who lift weights skip training their legs. I’ll never understand these people because your legs are a major muscle group in your body. As such, not training them is like not training your chest and back together.
Boxers don’t skip leg day, although many think they should. This is because your lower body plays a significant role in your boxing game. As such, no boxer who respects himself and wants to improve will skip leg day.
If you want to know which muscles work when you punch, follow the link to an article breaking down the complete list.
According to a study, “In the latter study, only three resistance training sessions including bench press, half-squat and jump squat exercises increased punching (jab and cross) impact forces by ~8%, and with an effective transference of ~0.80.”
You can increase your punching power only from three weight-lifting sessions. Doesn’t that make you excited to hit the gym already?
Is having strong legs important in boxing?
Strong legs are important in boxing because your lower body is the driving force of your punch. Although your legs won’t touch the opponent, they’re what’s behind the force you generated. As such, having more muscular legs means having stronger punches, thus, being a better boxer.
According to a study: “Finally, the correlations between strength/power variables and punching impact indices ranged between 0.67 and 0.85.”
Strength and punching impact link, according to this study. So, you can improve your punching power in boxing if you work both your lower and upper body.
The link between strong legs and punching power
Your legs are the driving force behind your punches. In addition, you generate force through your quads and hamstrings. Therefore, you’ll generate more force with your punches if you have stronger muscles.
Thus, working your legs is critical in boxing. Don’t allow yourself to skip leg day, even though it’s the most challenging workout. I know how fun arm day can be; you don’t need to push yourself too far.
However, you’ll notice the most growth and progression in your fitness journey when you do the hard things. Leg day can be the hard thing that helps you progress the most.
Therefore, please don’t skip it.
Final words
Your legs can drive up to 40% of your total punching power. Do you understand how significant this number is?
You have to train your legs if you’re a boxer who aspires to progress and learn more.
You can drive a high percentage of your punching power from your legs. However, you can’t do that with any other muscle group in your body.
Thus, boxers don’t skip leg day, even though it’s the toughest workout. The opposite is true; because it’s the most challenging workout, they don’t allow themselves to skip it.
You’ll also enjoy reading about the complete boxing guide for skinny people.