Boxing

[Yookiwooki]

I'm thinking about taking up boxing.

If anyone here boxes, can you tell me how you got started? Are there amatuear leagues people can join? How do I get involved?

I'm kinda tall and lanky, not the stereotypical boxing type. Should I bulk up before even considering boxing?

 

[BMX]

I started by getting a heavy bag for my basement and it was a great workout tool in my arsenal. You can join like an L.A. Boxing to get exposed to the sport and weights they have or maybe do a web search on the amateur leagues near you/hardcore boxing gyms if any.

I personally have to forgo boxing/mma right now and focus on my upcoming cycling career. You won't be lifting to bulk up necessarily, because there's a lot of muscular endurance involved. You'll find that there are lots of anaerobic bouts of energy expended during your rounds and this will require drills like sprints and even intense intervals on the bag, jump-roping is good too. You also have to work your aerobic system with longer runs, bike rides or other cardio forms.

Perfect place to start is Ross Enamait's very own lair: www.rossboxing.com, a lot of in-depth articles about the training and advice. He even has a link to a bodybuilding.com article on proper boxing training. There's another site, rosstraining.com that has helped me & countless others in various sports/professions.

 

[wolf116]

Just call all the small boxing gyms in your area and tell them you want to eventually fight in the ring. That way they will focus training you up fast. Visit them, then chose the best one. Hint: the best gyms are usually small, dirty, hardcore dungeons that focus on ring fights. The new, shinny ones are money making businesses.

Don't even worry about bulking or doing your own training, you trainer will probably have you cut weight to fit into a smaller weight category anyway, you will own all with your long reach. Just do what ever your trainer tells you to until you get experienced.

Trust me, in amateur boxing, tall and lanky is a good thing as you will be fighting shorter guys.

 

[MrS]

Just go to a boxing gym.

Tommy Hearns was like a twig, 6"1 @ 147lbs but one of the greatest ever.

 

[The Inside Man]

Boxing is a fun sport but it is tough. Some colleges have a boxing club, or you may have to look for a boxing gym around your city. I think the schools clubs are better because they are less intimidating to a first timer. Start slow, learn techniques and combos, then you can progress to harder training and sparring.

After you have learned the basics all you need is a couple friends who also have some training, and then just have boxing matches in your back yard. It's fun, free, and with headgear and mouthpieces usually safe. I stress learning the basics such as head movement, defensive moves, stepping, and alot of time working on form for punches and combos.

I used to do this with my friend who is a 9-3 amateur boxer and has also had a cage match, and it helped me become a much better boxer. When I went back to the boxing club after training in the backyard a few months I parried a 3 punch combo and hit an immediate hard counter left that made everyone ask him "Whoa are you okay?!!"

Its times like those where you make a connection to a technique and your body literally resorts back to your training, and you hit a great technique without really thinking about it, like a reflex.

After you learn the basics and keep practicing them over and over, you will start to make these connections about timing punches, footwork, and feeling "the sweet science" at work. Good luck, be safe let us know how it goes!


Also, like some others have said, being tall and lanky can be an asset as you will have a reach advantage. So you would want to work from the outside whereas shorter guys sparring you will try to get inside and connect with tight hooks. You will want to focus on your jab and your straight(cross) because those will be two of your best assets as a taller fighter.



Be careful hitting a heavy bag without training, you need to have correct form and wrapped hands as a minimum for a serious heavy bag session. Start shadowboxing when you're by yourself. It may seem funny at first but it is a good way to constantly practice punches, slips, and stepping techniques. Start with a jab, jab-cross, and jab-cross-hook combo. Are you right or left handed?

 

[Bible_Belt]

Some of the guys from my dojo had cage fights last night. One of our guys had boxing experience, and another guy fought a boxer, a kid who had won a golden gloves tourney. Our box boxer ended up getting a draw after spending most of his fight on the ground, and our guy who fought the boxer lost, which is rare for our dojo, we have won about ten in a row. However, the boxer won with Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He jumped on our guy's back and choked him.

mma is the big thing these days; boxing is going downhill in popularity. I still respect it, and I do some sparring myself as part of mma training, but with mma, all of the arts in pure form are only as useful to the point where some other fighting style can get the better of them. In any fight, your best weapons are determined largely by your range. As you close distance, kicks become the first strike that would land. Slightly closer is boxing distance. But then when the other guy grabs you, Muay Thai elbows and knees become most useful. In the clench, a judo throw or wrestling takedown works very well. Finally, on the ground it is Gracie Jiu-Jitsu all the way. If you only train in one art, then you are only going to be an effective fighter at the one range of distance where that art works best.

 

[Yookiwooki]

My friends have boxing matches in the backyard every once and a while with helmets and gloves. Is it worth joining them with no training whatsoever, or should I try to get some idea of form before jumping in?

 

[Bible_Belt]

Is it worth joining them with no training whatsoever, or should I try to get some idea of form before jumping in?

As a training junkie, I would tell you to stay away. I train five times a week with the best trainer I can find for an amateur fight that I have not even had yet; we laugh at fighters who say things like 'I train in my cousin's garage' - most of them are a joke. All you're going to accomplish in a backyard is reinforcing bad habits and poor form, and it's not worth the risk of getting hurt. But if you start training seriously and come back in a month or a few month, you should just destroy all of your friends. Soon it would no longer be fun.

 

[The Inside Man]

I shouldn't have mentioned the backyard boxing thing. No, not worth the risk if you don't have a few years training. If you have trained for a while you can learn quite a bit as long as you already have good form to start with.

"If you weren't smoking pot with your friends and fighting in the backyard, then I don't know what the fuc k you're doing"--Nick Diaz

Some people say boxing is dying out, but it is really just being absorbed by MMA. You still have to learn boxing to learn mma and it's a good workout if you just want to learn the sport by itself.

Training one aspect of mma can be helpful, instead of trying to learn all aspects of MMA all at once. 10 or 20 years ago there were few places that offered MMA training so many good fighters have learned MMA by studying one aspect at a time.



So to conclude no, as I said earlier-- no sparring until you've been working on form, combos, mitts, and a little bit of bag work for at least 6 months. And don't spar with your friends who aren't trained, it will just reinforce bad habits or turn into a no defense brawling match like Biblebelt said.

 

[Gaucho]

Tommy Hearns was like a twig, 6"1 @ 147lbs but one of the greatest ever.

Which Tommy Hearns are you referring too?

He was tall, but ripped and a muscular beast!

http://www.detnews.com/specialreports/2001/kronk/monhearns/a012tapehearns4a.jpg

I disagree with those who say MMA is dominating. Boxing has a tradition lasting hundreds of years, some of the biggest ever PPV numbers have been done lately and now it is moving from PPV to try and recapture the mainsteam fans again.

I watch MMA fights, and enjoy those skilled guys, but let's face it, they have to concentrate on so many aspects of fighting, they never really master one. It is so much cleaner to watch a great K1 or boxing fight. Cung Le is the epitome of mastering multiple styles, but a very rare act indeed.

Boxers spend time in gyms since they are kids, polishing their trade, whereas MMA is just beginning, so many of the guys you see in the ring are complete rubbish. It takes many many years of building upon your tecnnique before you master it, no matter how hard you train over a few years will not polish a fighter off. Still many subtle flaws in their styles.

Just my opinion.

As for the question, I found boxing a fantastic sport and don't regret a minute of it. I boxed for several years.

As for where to train, I would encourage you to train a few times in multiple gyms. See which trainer suits you best, one of which will not try and impose his style of fighting on you and realise each fighter needs to fight to suit their own natural abilities. You will be surprised how many coaches do not recognise this and try and turn a brawler into a boxer or vice-versa.