When you find a sport or activity you love and enjoy, it can be hard to hold yourself back. Boxing is no different. Learning a new skill is addicting and all you can think about is the perfect punch. So, can you box every day and fulfill your boxing craving?
You can box every day if you manage the volume and intensity of your sessions. The best way to do this is to alternate hard and easy boxing days so you avoid overuse injuries and fatigue.
But is there an optimal number of times a week to box and can boxing every day eventually be bad for you?
How Many Times A Week Should You Box?
How many times a week you box comes down to your training age and your overall goals. If you are a novice learning the ropes, then twice a week would be considered the minimum number of days per week to box. Two to three times a week is the sweet spot for a novice to learn the skill of boxing while getting a great workout.
After a few months of this, you can progress to four times a week or more depending on your goals. If your goal is to have your first amateur fight, you can box up to six times a week to hone your punching technique and boxing conditioning.
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If your goal is to just have fun and break a sweat, then you can stick with the two to three times a week of boxing or whatever fits your schedule. You may find you enjoy it so much you want to do more!
Is Boxing Every Day Bad?
Boxing every day isn’t inherently bad. It depends on how you structure your sessions. You can’t hit the heavy bag with full force every day as you will run into overuse injuries quickly. Not to mention knuckle, hand, and wrist injuries to follow.
But if you alternate your easy and hard boxing sessions each day, you can easily box every day without burning out. For example, your hard days can consist of hard pad or bag work and also include sparring some days.
Easy days can involve light shadowboxing to reinforce the techniques you are learning in class. Ideally, you would take at least one day off a week to give your body complete rest. Even better would be the addition of boxing weight training to reduce your risk of injury and help you punch harder.
Is It Good To Hit The Punching Bag Every Day?
There are two main problems with hitting the punching bag every day:
- Overuse and hand injuries can develop quickly with the impact forces of power punching a bag,
- Throwing hard punches against the bag every day can degrade your punching technique quickly and ingrain poor punching habits.
There is a reason boxers will use different types of bags to punch within their training. Hitting the heavy bag causes heavy impacts on the joints of the upper body. It is not well absorbed by a heavy bag and returns back down the arms.
Water bags absorb more of the impact force from punching so you don’t get the same stress in the hands, shoulders, and arms. Secondly, punching bags are generally used for throwing heavy punches.
This is not something you want to get into a habit of doing as you need a mix of speed, timing, and power punches when boxing. Further, power punches can get sloppy ingraining bad habits. However, if you vary your intensity on the punching bag, you may not run into these issues.
Can You Shadowbox Every Day?
You can shadowbox every day. In fact, much of your boxing conditioning should be done using boxing modalities like shadowboxing. There is no stress on the joints, and you get to perfect your punching technique.
Not every shadowboxing session needs to be a sweat session. Shadowboxing can be done slowly and with intent to retrain any bad habits. But you’re not limited to punching techniques when shadowboxing. Use this time to train defensive techniques too.
Visualizing yourself slipping punches, bobbing and weaving, and using various offensive and defensive footwork is all part of effective shadowboxing. So, if your shoulders and arms are heavily fatigued from the week of boxing, then these movements can be used with minimal punching.
Can You Box Every Day?
I would advise not to box every day as having at least one day off is good for mental and physical recovery. However, boxing every day can be done but your easy days must be very easy. They can consist of pure technique work or light aerobic conditioning.
