Is Boxing Useful in Real-Life? The Answer Inside


A woman punching

Boxing goes beyond being just a popular sport. It is a martial art that teaches skills that can be used outside the ring in real-life situations.

Boxing is useful in real life because it teaches you offensive and defensive moves, allowing you to defend yourself. Likewise, because it includes sparring training, it makes you a solid fighter, capable of getting punched and not moving an inch. It also instills virtues of discipline, self-confidence, and focus.

It teaches focus and concentration during sparring, as one minute of not being alert can land you a blow from your opponent. These skills are useful in school to excel in studies or at work to increase productivity. It enables one to get away from life’s troubles and focus on the opponent.

Building strength through boxing improves one’s self-confidence and equips one with a fighting spirit to deal with hard life situations. Practicing boxing increases one’s self-esteem as it builds muscle and improves physique.

Boxing helps release aggression, therefore, enabling one to manage stress and anger even outside the gym. This in turn reduces an individual’s risk of getting depression and lowers anxiety levels.


Before we dive in, if you want to learn why people start to box, ensure to follow the link to an article of mine. Reading this piece may be everything you need to fuel your motivation and start your journey.

Is boxing effective for self-defense?

Boxing is a popular fighting style that has existed since prehistoric times. However, does it teach self-defense skills that can come in handy in a life-threatening situation?

Boxing is effective for self-defense as it teaches various attacking and defensive motions, distance control, and effective footwork. It teaches practical punches such as the uppercut, jab, and hook that are efficient in self-defense situations.

Boxing teaches punching techniques that enable the student to deliver powerful punches that are required to defeat the opponent in self-defense situations. Learning just the basic skills of boxing sets up students to defend themselves.

It teaches efficient defensive techniques by training the student how to block high impulsive attacks from the opponent. Boxers stand in a proper stance, holding up their arms high to protect the face and head by blocking attacks from the opponent using their hands.

Students learn to keep their elbows tight on their sides to protect inner body organs located in the upper body, such as the liver and ribs.

Boxing focuses on efficient head movement, with students moving their heads from right to left to evade strikes from the adversary. Students learn to keep their heads off the centerline, as this makes them a smaller target.

Effective footwork taught in boxing enables a student to stay light on their feet and move in any direction to be evasive towards the rival. Keeping perfect range ensures the opponent misses the punches.

The combination of offensive and defensive techniques, distance control, and footwork equips the student with a good fighting style to defend themselves against any opponent.

Is boxing useful?

Boxing is one of the best martial arts worldwide. Because of that, many people start learning it, as it teaches practical and effective fighting techniques, primarily striking. These techniques range from the hook, jab, straight-punch, and other defensive moves. So, is it even useful?

Boxing is useful for self-defense in life-threatening situations and street fights. The martial art is helpful as a tool for weight loss, fitness workouts, improving body balance and coordination. It is applicable as a professional career and as stress therapy.

Strength training and cardio are part of boxing routines. This makes it a great way of burning excess calories fast. It involves working the abs, arms, shoulder muscles, and chest. It is an excellent tool for those who want to lose weight fast.

Boxing fight
Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

Boxing is an intensive workout that works the whole body and is useful in building lean muscle mass. It helps build strong bones and joints. Practicing it strengthens bone mass and decreases the risk of breaking bones. This prevents one from getting degenerative diseases such as osteoporosis.

It helps a student to use their senses and body parts for the efficient performance of tasks. Boxing training improves core strength that provides the body with stability and reduces lower back pain.

A publication by China Medical University stated that core strength training and motor skills are effective lower-back pain reduction methods and play a fundamental role in stabilizing the spinal system. (Research Gate)  

Is boxing useful in self-defense?

Boxing is useful in self-defense situations, as a boxer can easily take down a person with no boxing skills. Street fights attract mobs and one can find themselves cornered by a group of people. In this situation, boxing comes in handy, as a boxer can handle a group of people by delivering one knock-out punch and coordinating their footwork.

A student can take up boxing as a professional career and participate in world boxing championships. Through discipline and hard work, a student can climb the heights of this career and become a high-profile boxer such as Mike Tyson.

Boxing is useful as stress therapy for people struggling with stress management.

Is boxing worth it?

Before choosing to learn a martial art, most people want to know whether it will be worth their while. Putting in work to something that is not beneficial is frustrating and tiring, so, is boxing worth it?

Boxing is worth it as it provides many mental and physical benefits to students, such as improving cardiovascular health and regulating blood pressure. Likewise, It aids in weight loss, improves fitness, reduces stress, and builds muscle. Self-confidence, discipline, and resilience are virtues that boxing provides its learners.

Boxing fight
Photo by Nemesia Production on Unsplash

Boxing involves high-intensity activities during training sessions and matches. When punching, many muscles expand and contract, thus strengthening the heart over time. Extreme exercise reduces the risk of heart disease.

Intense training in boxing aids in the efficient flow of blood and oxygen in the body. It lowers blood pressure and reduces stress on the blood vessels.

A boxer burns approximately 600-900 calories per training session that involves boxing a punching bag and sparring. Hence, It involves strength and conditioning exercises that burn fat, leading to a decrease in weight. Punching uses the upper and lower body muscles at high intensity, thus making boxing a full-body workout that builds muscle if combined with proper nutrition and muscle recovery.

Boxing instills confidence in its students by teaching them fighting techniques and gives them a sense of belonging to the boxing community worldwide. It gives students the resilience to push through anything as they withstand extreme exercises and sparring.

It improves one’s balance through coordinated footwork and reduces strength as it releases aggression when hitting the punching bag.


Follow the link to learn more about the rules of boxing. Learning these guidelines should be the first thing you do if you want to start training in such a competitive sport.

Does boxing help you in real life?

Boxing teaches skills that are applicable in real-life circumstances.

Boxing is useful in real life for self-defense, identity formation, goal achievement, personal outlook, and overall health. It changes an individual’s way of life and improves their perception of hardships in life. Boxers understand the importance of hard work and discipline.

Boxing teaches a student effective fighting techniques that enable a student to protect themselves and their loved ones in a life-threatening situation. Boxers deliver faster and more accurate punches.

A boxer fighting

Students learn how to deliver powerful punches by pivoting their lower limbs and rotating the body to add strength to their punches. This technique enables boxers to deliver one knock-out punch to their opponents and leave the danger zone. 

A boxer handles multiple rivals in street fights alone by knocking them out with one strike. Boxers have a fighter mentality as they receive blows when training and thus are accustomed to pain.

It aids in identity formation by making students confident in themselves for accomplishing learning boxing. Students understand that they need to work hard to receive the fruits of their labor. Moreover, Boxing improves personal outlook by improving the physique of a student, thus, they get confident about their body.

Boxing instills discipline in students, which is a requirement for goal achievement. Likewise, It improves fitness and overall body health as it is a full-body workout.

Final words

Taking a boxing class is worth it considering all the benefits the martial art comes with.

It is useful in real-life situations for self-defense in street fights, as a tool to aid weight loss, as a way to improve fitness, as stress therapy, and as a professional career. Additionally, it teaches virtues of discipline, resilience, hard work, perseverance and building confidence.

Start learning boxing today and implement it in these areas of your life.

If you enjoyed reading this article, you may be interested in learning more about the 9 reasons to learn to box because. Who knows, you may fuel your tank and start training after reading this article.

Levi

I've served in the military as a special forces operator for 4-years. In that period, I've trained in many martial arts, including karate, MMA, BJJ, boxing, and even Krav Maga. I want to share my passion with you, so here it is!

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