Ideas for a Boxing Instructor

[Cloud-uk]

I'm picking up qualifications and experience to become a fitness instructor at the moment, and have landed a coaching post at my Uni for the boxing society. It's quite a small society, classes no more than 10 girls/ guys (classes are gender specific). Building on what the previous guys were doing, the 1 hour class is set up with a 10 minute stretch/warmup, about 40 minutes of circuits and technique ending in 10 minutes of cardio and then some abs work.

Considering this is done with minimal equipment (medicine balls, mitts and pads, skipping ropes... that's about it...) does anyone have any good suggestions for novel exercises to do to mix things up a bit? The general fitness level (at least for the guys) is pretty good, so some quite demnding stuff would be great. Any good websites with exercise lists?

Also, if you do any martial arts or more traditional sports and there's any circuit startions/exercises that your coach gets you to do that is good let us know.

Thanks :rockon:

 

[WesCottII]

Hey man, good to see you back after so long.

I'd suggest quite alot of pylometrics in the session.

Burpees. Tuck Jumps, pylometric press ups, jump rope, squat thrusts, star jumps....etc. This will help build explosive strength and promote quick reflexes, essential to boxing. You might also try, shadow boxing, or punch combo's.

As for the medicine balls, they can be incorporated quite easily with rows, squats, more pylometrics......

Training the core is important in boxing, as thats where all the power comes from, so throw in some planks.....sit ups, bac extensions etc....

P.s. I remember calf endurance having to be quite high, I recall reading somewhere that Ricky Hatton develops his calf's by jumping over a low bench for a session. (again Pylometrics)

Hope this helps.

Making a circuit from that should be quite easy. 1 minute on each activity none stop no rest. 10 excersizes......they should love you.

Edit:

Did some research for you into Medicine ball excersizes, found this site quite useful, check it out.
http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/medball.htm

 

[grr]

In my Wing Chun class, which lasts two-and-a-half hours, we have about an hours worth of stretching and exercises followed by drills for the last hour-and-a-half. The exercises are mostly composed of three varied sets of 60 crunches, 3 sets of 50 standard jumping jacks, and 3 varied sets of push-ups for 15 reps.

Sometimes, say once or twice a month we have training sessions where we skip the exercises, get in a circle, and literally run shadowbox drills for an entire two hours. The Sifu (wing chun term, its like sensei) will lead with a certain combination, count out punches as everyone follows along, then the person to his left leads, which continues around the circle until it gets back to him and he switches up the particular combination.

Afterwards, coordination moving the steering wheel on the drive home can be... difficult.

 

[Chillisauce]

As WestCottII said.. burpies, or pushup birpies even . A burpie session sorts the boys from the men. Make sure you include in your class sparring at least once a week.

 

[MrS]

get a few heavy bags, they can be quite cheap if you knock them together yourself.

Waht we do is:

15 mintues running,with stretches like arm circles, jumps, 10 pushups at random, lateral movements, then we go for stretches, another 5 mins or so.

when tahts done we do Skipping / Shadowboxing / Skipping / Shadowboxing / Skipping in 1 minute rounds, that's a good warmup routine.

After that, if you don't have any heavy bags (shouldn't cost much, order some bags from somewhere like ebay, then fill it up, I can give you tips on that,attaching it to a ceiling is another matter), start on rounds on the pads.
What you could do is stand in the middle, get them to go round in circles, dance/lateral move about with proper footwork, then go through them all with a combination, if they're going left then tell them to go 1-2-3, jab-cross-jab or something, depends how good they are, you could do 1-2, or 1-2-uppercut etc, I can give you some combos we do at our gym, hes a pretty good trainer. A round of 2:30 minutes for that.

That's something everyone can do, what else you can do is get them to stand in a line, and come towards you one by one, work the footwork, then they do it turn a combination, same for everyone, they do it till they get the hang, then change, for example start with a jab jab cross, then jab cross jab, then jab jab uppercut, lots of variations, keep it short and sweet.

Afterwards, if you have decent sized gloves, go for some technique. Show the proper blocks and then skiffs (not at once, go slowly, slow and steady is the key in boxing practise, same things over and over,weeks later sort of thing since they're so many differnet variations of the same thing you can do). Then group people together 2 by 2, so one throws a light punch (not sparring, intended slowly and for technique practise, not try and hit him), the other blocks, then the other way around. For example, jab cross -> block parry, watch the footwork on the parry. And start the circle again. Make sure they're moving around in a circle, other way round, not just standing and doing it like robots.

Hmm, what else. Oh yes, of course, while they're doing that, get them one by one if you can to go 1on1 with you on the focus pads, make them short intense rounds, 2 minutes instead of 2:30.

Then finish it off with ab work, you could do a circuit with a few weights, but i dont know if you have any so i wont go into that.

Last, stretch, 3 minute round of skipping.

As for intensity, the most intesne things are the heavy bag and focus pad drills for me in our circuit so.

Medicine balls you can do various things, throw them with the punch move, or have 2 people back to back, pass it under their legs, or to their left/right to each other.

Plyometric exercises are always good too if you're low on boxing specific equipment.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, so don't hesitate in getting back to me if you want

 

[Cloud-uk]

Damn it's good to be back!

Some damn good ideas here, some that I've been doing last term but I need to do more. I'm going to be a bit more specific about the kinds of things I do at the moment, and what equipment I have, to see if it gets any more quality:

OK, so after the stretches (which I have to admit aren't structured enough and too quick) is the warm up/cardio. Now, we're doing this alternately in a bare sports hall and a badminton court- it's less olymipcs more fight club. Still, the badminton court is tiny, so running has to be on the spot, but has a gym next door. This gym is a wreck and it may be demolished by the time I get back to Uni. It does however have a heavy bag in it . I'm sure I could get a bench into the sports hall for some Hatton calf work. Man I'm going to join in on that, my calves need some work.

This first bit of cardio is either lenghts or running on the spot, and I'll call out 10/20 sec sprints, pushup burpees (any other kind just isn't holy!), pressups, squat thrusts etc. I need to get those tuck jumps in!

It's dawning on my I need to get some more pylometrics in... Hmmmm...

Now, the circuits in the middle I've been running at 2 mins a station with a lap sprint in between each one. Some of these stations are things like medicine ball throws and skipping (don't have that many ropes), others are light sparring, pad work and shaddow boxing.

The advice so far has been great, WesCottII it is good to be back man- thanks for the help. MrS could I get some of those combos? Would help advance things a bit.

Other stuff I've been trying to do is get them to look at there opponent's eyes: not their hands. Something i was taught doing muay thai... any opinions on it?

By the way I don't have a boxing background, but with the other coaches needing to take time off I'm picking up the slack, as it were. Still, got a couple of week syet before it kicks off again to get it all tight.

 

[WesCottII]

This looks quite helpful for the heavy bag work. Hope it helps you. By the way, how'd you get into fitness instructing whilst still being a student? Iti's something I'd love to do.


Taken from a boxing workout on BB.com

1. Jab
2. Straight Right
3. Left hook
4. Right Hook
5. Left Uppercut
6. Right Uppercut

On the heavy bag.

Round 1 "3 minutes": Ok, this is the first round. We're going to just get the feel of the bag. Work around the bag using the 1-1 and 1-1-1 combinations.

Rest "1 minute":

Round 2 "3 minutes": Are you tired yet? Now start using the 1-2 combo. When you hit the bag using your straight right you should here the back go WAP!

Rest 2 "1 minute":

Round 3 "3 minutes": Ok you should really be burning those calories now. You should be moving at all times. Start with the 1-2-3. The left hook maybe hard to do at first, but stick with it.

Rest 3 "1 minute": If you're not sweating and your heart beat isn't up then you're moving. Remember you should be moving when you're not punching.

Round 4 "1 minute": 2-3-2. Ok start using this combination.

Rest 4 "1 minute": Anytime you are resting you should be using the time to drink some water.

Round 5 "3 Minutes": Ok this is the last round. Give it your all! Use the 3-2-3 combo.

Cool down: 5 minutes of jump rope.

 

[Chillisauce]

Some combinations, brackets is southpaw.

Left (or right) uppercut, right (or left) cross, left (or right) hook
Left (or right) jab, right (or left) cross, left (or right) jab.
Right cross (or left), left hook (or right), right cross (or left).
Left (or right) jab, right (or left) cross, left (or right) jab, right (or left) cross, left (or right) hook.
Double Jab
Triple Jab
Left (or right) jab, Left (or right) hook, Right (or left) overhand.
Left (or right) jab, right (or left) hook, left (or right) hook. (good old 1234 .)

Its more important to focus on simple combinations and basic punches than complicated combinations btw.

Fear the man who has practiced one move 1000 times more than a man who knows 1000 moves. (totally butchered that quote).

Check out this site for good boxing training info

http://www.rossboxing.com/thegym.html

 

[MrS]

depends really on how good they are, with our trainer he shows spoemthing new every month, for example 1st month was jab/cross, combinations for these were

1-2
1-2-1
1-1-2
2-1
2-1-2

1 being jab, 2 being cross

next month we did the uppercuts

Which went, half the above combinations, and:

1-2-3 (left uppercut)
1-4 (right uppercut)
1-1-4
1-2-3-4
3-4
4-3
3-4-3
4-3-4
1-2-3
1-3-4

Mix it up as you see fit, something very important is learning the right footwork, blocks, parries and skiffs, cos then that adds a whole lot of extra things you can do without doing the same.

Repetition is the key, and right technique.

Somethign else you can do if you haven't, is of course show the jab to the body, right to the body, you should know how, if you don't, watch a few fighters do it. This is useful before you move onto uppercuts/hooks since they are the same 2 moves as the standing up ones, only executed from a different height.

I wouldn't go by what bb.com says about boxing It's not a boxing site.

Drills on the heavy bag? Make them 3 minutes long if you only ahve one, so everyone gets a go. This is partially good, in that it gets you working on it intesnly since you only have 1 round, Mike Tyson did something similar.

The important thing here though is to get the right technique, footwork, movement in the punches, then go for the explosive punch combos. Takes time, but is worth it.

Basically shadowbox and do the techniques right, work the pads, then get them on the heavy bag do to what they've learnt, try and do as much as they can, something like that, that may not have been too clear

Anyway, that's all I can think of right now, glad we're helping.

 

[Cloud-uk]

Awesome, thanks guys. This stuff will be gold- especially in the guys session.

WesCottII- I was going to PM you with this but it might be of value to other UK peeps, so if you're a student looking to get into the fitness industry...

The industry standard qualifications are YMCA fitness courses (http://www.fitnessindustryeducation.com). It's quite handy because you do all the theory on the internet through worksheets. After you complete them all you sit an exam/practical- held in various places about the country.

To become a basic fitness instructor you need to complete two modules, Exercise & Fitness Knowledge (£175) and Fitness Instructor (£385). So it's not cheap. Also, cash wise, the support phone line is extortionate.

Also, my Uni's firewall blocks some of the files which is very very annoying. The way I've got around this is to get family to printscreen bits I couldn't get. Might not be an issue for you but this is what I experienced. The online course can be a bit tempermental

Oh, you also need a first Aid qualification at some point.

Are you at Nottingham Uni? I'm sure you'll have no trouble with the course content- it's not too taxing. However there's a lot stuff to remember at the two courses are billed at 60 hours and 40 hours of work respectively.

Anyway, those are the main things that I mulled over (or wish I had) before deciding to put my cash into it. If you want anymore info just ask mate!

Thanks again for the help all.