Whether you’ve had a boxing bag in your garage for years or are a complete beginner who’s always wanted to try, these are the boxing basics you’ll need for a great garage workout.
It’s nothing over complicated so it’s great for beginner boxers or even as a refresher if it’s been a few years.
And just to preface, everything I’m sharing is the basics of boxing for a workout, not what I would take as specifics for true boxing or fighting.
We’re just having fun over here, working on our people pleasing and hidden anger issues in a healthy way.
So if that’s you, let’s dive in!
Boxing basics general
The main thing you need to know is that everything is based on the stance of your dominant hand. What does that mean?
Are you right handed or left handed?
Whatever hand you write with will be the food that is slightly behind in a staggered athletic stance as shown below.
You’re going to want to stay on the balls of your feet so you can move easily and also use your hips to drive through the punches as well.
This will all take time to get used to so don’t stress!
And once you’ve got the boxing basics down, be sure to join the Diary and get some combo ideas in my Done In 10 freebie. You’ll also get 20 other workout ideas you can do in 10 minutes.
Can’t wait to see you there!
Punches
Now that you have your athletic stance figured out, let’s dive into this. There are 4 punches we’re going to be focusing on here:
Jab
Cross
Hook
Uppercut (upper)
Bonus: Superman (check the YouTube video out for that specific breakdown)
Jab
Your jab is always going to come from the leg that’s in front. So if you’re right handed and have your right foot slightly back, your left hand will be your jab.
Does that make sense?
The hand that’s closest to the bag in your athletic stance will be your jab. For this one, you’re going to rotate your wrist until your palm is down. It will feel like a typical punch you’d throw or see someone else throw in front of them.
Cross
Your cross is going to be the other hand. So coming from the leg that’s staggered back, that will be the hand that will be your cross punch.
You can also think of it as the punch that has to go ACROSS your body to hit the bag, hence cross punch.
This one will too have a slight wrist rotation for the palms to face down. And for both the Jab and Cross, you want to make sure you don’t fully extend the arm and lock out. You’ll hurt yourself.
Hook
This punch can be done by both hands and focuses on hitting the side of the bag. You’ll have to take a slight step in to get closer since we don’t want to over reach this one.
For the hooks, you’ll want to keep your elbows slightly bent and focus on driving through the hips and twisting on your toes to help give the punch more power.
You’ll also want to make sure to keep the thumbs pointed toward the ceiling as well. So thumbs up, palm is facing you, and hooks go on either side of the bag.
Uppercut
The last punch is going to be the uppercut or upper as I would call out in class. This one too will be closer to the bag, so about the same distance as the hooks.
Except for this punch, palms are going to be facing up toward the ceiling and think of hitting someone in the stomach as a visual. And again, you’re driving with your hips and twisting on your toes to give it more power.
This one as well can be done with both hands.
Kicks
When it comes to kicks, I’m going to give you 3 examples you can use on your hanging Thai bag. And the main focus for these is to get the steps and movement down before you focus on adding any strength or power behind them.
Just like with any of these, you can really hurt yourself if you don’t get the basics down first.
Front Kick
This kick is assuming your bag is hanging off the ground a little bit, like pictured below.
For kicks, you’re always going to start with the leg that’s staggered behind you.
And the front kick focuses on you pointing your toes, leaning back slightly just to balance yourself out, and aiming for the shoes laces/lower shin to kick under the bag.
DO NOT FLEX YOUR TOE. It will not feel good.
And if you want to kick from the other leg, you’re just going to switch out which leg is staggered back and then kick with the other leg.
Round Kick
This is going to be the fun kick that looks super cool. Again, focus on the form first and then work on the power behind it.
For this one, the foot in front is going to take a slight step in and make sure the inside of your foot is facing the bag. So instead of toes pointed toward the bag, your toe will be pointed slightly away from the bag.
This will help open up the hips for you to kick the other leg around the side of the bag and kick on the front of your shin.
With the toes pointed away, this will also force you to follow and slightly lean to, again, balance out the kick. Also focus on pointing your toes and more of a quick snap at the knee.
This one takes time to get the movement and steps down. So as you start adding boxing into your workouts, I’d take one whole round and just focus on getting the kicks down.
And if you want a free and simple app to use in order to time your workouts and not have to worry about it, check out The Best Free Fitness Timer.
Knees
This one is exactly as it sounds, you’re going to knee the bag.
Again, focusing on driving with the leg that’s slightly behind you, you can either drive straight forward hitting the front of your knee. People will usually hold onto the bag for this one so it doesn’t move a lot and you can really knee the bag.
OR
You can take a step to the side slightly and knee the side of the bag. This movement will be a little more similar to a round kick where you’re aiming for the side of the bag too.
And again, switching out the feet when you decide to use the other leg to knee as well.
Combos to start
Now that you’ve got the basics all set, and again be sure to check out the YouTube video for a visual breakdown if that would be more helpful, you’ll probably want some combos to test everything out.
Once you’ve gotten the Fitness Timer set up, you can start with some simple combos and workouts to get the hang of things.
When I was coaching, our first week of workouts was as simple as could be just to get everyone on the same page with the workout. So I’d recommend starting there.
Quick explanation of the abbreviations for everything we’ve covered so far:
J- jab
C- cross
H- hook
U- uppercut
SL- slip
Du- duck
DR- duckroll
Rk- round kick
Fk- front kick
Knee- knee to the side of the bag or under if you have a tier bag available
Now, I’d start with the two sets of combos listed below. Feel free to save them to your Pinterest board so you can come back to these.
And if you’d like some more ideas, be sure to join the Diary for more quick combos to try out in my Done In 10 freebie. Otherwise, you can always check out 20 Minute Workout Ideas for a few more combos and other quick workouts you can do in the garage as well.
Or I’ll have quick 10 minute workout walk throughs on YouTube as well.
Next steps
Now that you’ve got the basics down, you’re ready to go! You can literally start creating your own combos or starting with the ones I have in my Done In 10 freebie.
I’d recommend taking it slow and working on getting the form down the first week, and then you can dive into speed and power after that.
But if you’re looking to add boxing into your workout program, I highly recommend checking out my Hybrid Program that includes boxing, running and strength training.
If you don’t want to do the running, then you only have to worry about the boxing portion.
But the blog post will give you ideas for how you can start adding it in and structuring your workouts, while the Done In 10 freebie is a great place to start if you’re short on time.
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