Although boxing is one of the simplest martial arts out there, learning it, isn’t simple. Using all possible equipment that may help you learn the art faster—is essential. That’s why you should use a heavy bag—to teach you how to increase your punching power and learn other techniques. But, sometimes you don’t have one.
To practice boxing without a punching bag, you can either use shadowboxing or training with friends. Shadowboxing is something all boxers should be doing, which is when you throw punches and use defensive moves against an imaginary opponent. Training with friends can include pad-work or sparring.
Either way, without a punching bag—you’d have a tough time learning advanced offensive and defensive moves. And still, learning the basics with shadowboxing and with friends—is entirely possible and even recommended.
Shadowboxing is one of the best training tools every boxer has. It’ll make you learn both offensive and defensive techniques much faster.
Training with friends is the real difference here. If you desire to amp up your skills up a notch, you must have a real human being against you. If you don’t have one, you’ll have a challenging time getting used to transforming what you learned to real life skills.
Boxing can be effective for self-defense, only if you train for that purpose. So, if you only use shadowboxing, you’ll find it hard to actually throw real punches to a real attacker or opponent. That’s why training with friends by either sparring or doing pad-work—is critical for your progression.
Before we dive in, if you want to learn more about why boxing is so addictive, follow the link to an article of mine breaking down the reasons.
How to box without a bag
If you don’t have access to a punching bag, you can still learn the beautiful art of boxing. It will, however, be harder than if you had access to one, as it’s a suitable tool to learn the martial art.
To box without a bag, you must use tools such as shadowboxing and sparring. Nonetheless, many local parks have punching bags in them. As a result, you can train with a heavy bag, even if you don’t own one or don’t go to a boxing gym. If you still don’t have one, consider finding a group of friends to train with.
Sparring is the key to practicing without a heavy bag. Not only will it train you to throw fierce punches, but it’ll also work on your defensive game, which is just as important, if not more.
Nevertheless, you must use everything you can get your hands on—that’ll eventually improve your skills. For instance, if you have access to people whom you can train with, practice with them. Don’t go to your comfort zone, which is likely shadowboxing. Rather, experiment with all your tools.
Boxing bag alternatives
For the next section, we’ll discuss four alternatives which you can use to practice your boxing skills. While a punching bag—is critical for your development as a boxer, you might be able to learn the basic and advances moves of the art.
However, if you don’t train in a qualified boxing gym, which you’re likely not, as you’re looking to find ways to train without a heavy bag, it’ll be best to get access to one.
And, as I’ve mentioned, you can probably find one in a local park, free-to-use.
Shadowboxing
The first alternative is shadowboxing. As you may have understood, I’m a big fan of it. You can start boxing in the air whenever you want. For that reason, I want you to understand the power of this routine.
Shadowboxing is the act of punching in the air against an imaginary opponent. You can practice both the basic or advances techniques. Likewise, you can do so fast or slow, depends on your current skill level. And lastly, you can either practice offensive moves, defensive ones, or both simultaneously.
If your punching technique isn’t on-point yet, you don’t have to go through vigorous training to perfect it. Rather, you can start punching the air with proper technique, which you can learn from anywhere online.
Slowly, your mind and muscles will start to pick up the correct way of punching. Then, once you actually move to a punching bag after learning with shadowboxing, you’ll notice a drastic improvement in your power and speed.
Most boxers don’t bother perfecting their techniques; that, as you can guess, diminishes their power and speed in the long-term. If you want to ensure you’re on the side that knows how to punch correctly, start by shadowboxing.
Sparring
The second alternative to using a punching bag, also the most powerful one—is sparring. If you’re unfamiliar with this term, let’s first understand what it means and why it’s beneficial to all boxers out there, regardless of skill level.
Sparring is the act of fighting in a boxing match against a human being. It can be someone below or above your skill level. Sparring is crucial because it helps you turn what you learn separately, to a series of combinations. Without it, you won’t know how to transform what you learn to real life tools and skills.
Sparring is crucial regardless of your access to a heavy bag. All you need is a set of protective gear, and a place to train at. A place to train can be anywhere, even outdoors is fine, as long as you’re keeping yourself safe.
All boxers who want to take their game to the next level—should spar. It really doesn’t have any alternative; it’ll teach you how to get hit and ignore the pain. Likewise, it’ll teach you how to keep calm and trust your abilities.
Sparring is also a fantastic exercise for increasing your confidence and self-esteem.
If you want to learn more about the best boxing clothing for sparring, do follow the link to an article of mine where I break down the best ones.
Improvised punching bag
Next up, I decided to include an improvised punching bag as the third alternative. Although I don’t recommend working extremely hard to build one at your house, it can be a suitable replacement for what’s missing.
You can build an improvised punching bag out of anything you have access to, such as sofa cushions, chairs, tables, and everything else. Get creative if you want the outcome of the item to be useable. Of course, buying one—will save you plenty of building time and thinking; which can be fun!
You can improvise a heavy bag in many ways. I do encourage you to watch this YouTube video to understand more on how you can do so.
Pad-work
For the last alternative to a punching bag, I decided to include pad work. I still decided to include it in my list, although it includes buying equipment, which will cost you money. For that reason, if you’re unwilling to spend money on buying equipment, you can skip this section.
But, if you want to amp up your boxing game, using pad work—is a fantastic way of doing so.
The whole point of using pads is to be dynamic while training with a partner, preferably a coach. There are various combos which include both offensive and defensive moves. For instance, you can start a combo with a jab, then evade a punch by the pad holder, and finish off with a hook.
Pad work is excellent because it forces you to move around. You’re going to build habits according to what you train. As a result, if you work on the combination I gave as an example, you’re going to want to use it in a real fight. That’ll give you a solid foundation of combinations you know and can use.
You should use pads, regardless of whether you have or don’t have access to a punching bag. Building combinations as habits—is critical if you want to become a solid boxer. These are, for your information, also vital for self-defense and fighting.
Does boxing without a bag work?
Using a punching bag is one of the best ways to learn the art of boxing. In fact, it’s the best way of doing so, if you don’t have anyone to train with. That’s why many boxers use it to practice outside their boxing gym.
You can box without a punching bag. However, it’ll be difficult to improve your punching speed and power, as you won’t have any impact when you train, unless you spar often. You can use sparring, pad work, and shadowboxing—to learn the art of boxing without having access to a heavy bag.
That said, I still encourage you to either purchase or find a heavy bag you can train with. It’ll help you progress much faster than without one.
If you want to buy the best one, here’s the best punching bag for your money. (Amazon)
Eventually, you can’t find the experience it provides—anywhere else. As such, if you desire to boost your boxing skills by using this fantastic tool—you definitely should.
When I first started training Muay-Thai, I had no spare cash to buy a punching bag or attend boxing classes. So, I looked around the neighborhood and found a beautiful part which included a heavy bag outside. That’s how I managed to learn Muay-Thai without spending a single dime.
Does hitting the punching bag build muscle?
Building muscle—is highly desirable. Boxers want to do so because they want to increase their punching power. As you may know, force equals mass times acceleration (F=m·a). As a result, if you can increase your mass, you’ll also be increasing your force.
Hitting the punching bag isn’t a suitable way of building muscle, as it won’t cause a sufficient amount of micro-tears in your muscles. As a result, the process of hypertrophy will not occur. On the other hand, exercises such as resistance training—is the optimized way to build muscle.
I do recommend involving yourself in resistance training. That’s why having a coach is recommended. Having someone who has plenty of experience in the field, will help you to not worry about these things.
And still, you can build your own workout routine to also include resistance and boxing training. That’s how I managed to build muscle mass while learning the art of punching. You can do the same.
If you want to know how to build muscle using boxing, here’s an article I wrote that’ll help you increase your muscle mass while learning the art of punching.
According to a study, building muscle mass in the legs—will increase your punching power. That’s why I highly recommend involving yourself in resistance training with boxing practice.
Therefore, based off the present evidence, this review recommends that for boxers who aim to develop their punch impact force, it may be advantageous to emphasize both maximal and explosive strength development of the legs, with only an explosive strength focus in the upper body.
SOURCE
Can you learn boxing without a punching bag?
Up until this point, we’ve discussed the alternatives to training with a punching bag. Using either of these ways—will help you successfully learn the art of boxing without having access to such a tool.
You can learn to box without a punching bag, if you use other tools and exercises, such as shadowboxing, pad work, and sparring. However, the experience and practice you can get from training against a punching bag—isn’t found anywhere else. As a result, you can boost your progression by having one.
And still, I want to ensure you understand the meaning of not having a punching bag. If you desire to learn the art of boxing, you must have some impact. Let’s assume you’re only shadowboxing, do you really think you’ll be able to understand how the impact feels when you’re punching the air?
While I don’t mean to make fun of shadowboxing, as I do it all the time, it’s crucial to understand what it lacks; that is, of course, impact. If you really want to amp up your boxing skills, it’ll be best to use a punching bag or have some type of impact when you punch.
So, if you don’t have access to one, you must, at least, spar or use pad works with friends. That will help you fill what’s lacking in your training routine.
Final words
Not having access to a punching bag—will make you not progress as much. That’s why I encourage you to either try to build one, or practice with friends. Both ways will not be sufficient to the experience a high-quality heavy bag will provide.
And still, you do have some alternatives, such as shadowboxing, pad work, sparring, and trying to build an improvised bag. Using these will help you to fill what’s lacking and boost your progression rate.
If you enjoyed and learned from reading this article, be sure to read more about whether boxing without a coach is possible. Assuming you don’t have access to a punching bag, you likely don’t have access to a trainer. If you don’t, I highly encourage you to follow the link to learn more.