The sweet science of boxing asks for your peak physical performance and that’s why most boxers work tirelessly on their upper body to stay in the best possible shape. If you’re wondering do pushups will help you in a boxing game, this is the article for you:
So, Do Boxers Do Push Ups?
Most boxers do pushups to develop their upper body and increase their stamina while effectively working on the lower back and core muscles. It is a compound movement that allows boxers to focus on multiple muscle groups simultaneously and engage the relevant muscles that are being used to throw punches.
Here, I’ll dig deep into the benefits and explain to you exactly whether or not you should include pushups in your boxing training:
9 Key Benefits of Pushups for Boxing
Though pushups are considered as one of the very basic and effective exercises that can certainly provide better results, but many boxers tend to have a different opinion about it. Here’re some of the core benefits of doing pushups for boxing:
1. Enhancement in the Posture
As a boxer, your body posture is an important factor that allows you to perform different boxing techniques effectively, and believe me, pushups are a life-saver here.
If you execute pushups on daily basis in the proper manner, it will not only take care of your body posture but also makes your back muscles stronger while conditioning them to maintain a straight and stable posture.
2. Better Heart Health
Enhancement in your cardiovascular health by increasing your heart rate is another important benefit of doing pushups regularly.
One study performed by the JAMA network shows: the person who does 10+ pushups in a row has a 64% fewer chance of arising heart problems whereas the person doing 40+ pushups has 96% less chance of getting heart problems compared to the average.
In fact, I don’t think I need to explain to you the importance of a healthy heart in boxing. Whether you’re talking about high-intensity sparring sessions or even regular boxing training, pushups are certainly going to help you.
3. Complete Body Workout
When you perform the pushups with the right technique, you’re working on both major and minor muscle groups. Pushups help you to focus on your arms, chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps, abs, etc at the same time.
Basically, by performing pushups regularly you’re strengthening your different muscle groups while teaching them how to coordinate and to work together.
And you know what the best part is, pushups are very core and basic exercises and do not ask for any equipment. That means you can get a full-body workout anytime, anywhere, without any cost.
4. Pushups Are Empowering
Another great benefit of pushups is, it helps you to boost your confidence and make you feel stronger, more positive, capable, which is quite important especially at the beginning stages of boxing training.
Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the technique, just understand, the way in which you push your whole body weight up from the ground and hold that posture is just spectacular and makes them empowering.
5. Stronger Bones and Joints
According to the National Institute of Health, pushups not only help you to make your muscles stronger but the weight-bearing aspect of push-ups also gives strength to your body’s overall support structure.
By including pushups in your workout, you’re essentially giving better health to your bones and joints by building bone density and slowing down the natural decline of bones.
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6. Help to Burn Fat
Losing weight relatively faster by burning fats and calories is another major benefit of this exercise. On average, pushups will help you to burn around 7 calories per minute, which can be varies depending upon different factors like your age, height, weight, etc.
While doing push-ups, your body starts releasing miR-1 from the muscles into the bloodstream. As soon as it is released into the bloodstream, it allows your muscles to grow by encouraging the burning of fats at a rapid stage.
7. Quality Sleep Cycle
It’s a no-brainer that pushups are simple and convenient strength exercise that is more than enough to exhaust your muscle groups, which results in an overall improvement in your sleeping quality.
In fact, many scientific experiments are proven that, doing muscle-building exercises like pushups upgrade your sleep cycle in terms of increasing your time in a deep-sleep phase and reducing the time you take to fall asleep. (source)
8. Provide Balance and Stability
Proprioceptive muscle fibers are one of the key factors that help you to retain your body balance through microscopic nerves.
When you do push-ups, these nerves start continuous firing to keep your body from tipping over. This process helps them to respond more quickly during boxing matches and improves overall speed and balance.
9. Improve Upper-Body Strength
Although pushups will allow you to work out your full body simultaneously but during each and every pushup you’re challenging your upper body and kind of forcing it to strengthen the core muscle groups even harder.
This exercise mainly focuses on the chest, shoulders, upper back, and also helps you to tone your arms. Basically, doing pushups regularly is one of the amazing things you can include in your workout sessions.
How Many Push Ups Should a Boxers Do?
On average, boxers do 50 to 70 pushups per day to maintain their upper body. Ideally, you should perform this exercise in 3 sets and keep increasing the number of pushups on weekly basis to strengthen your muscle gains, provided it is done in a proper manner.
Personally, I don’t think you should follow these average numbers because they can be completely different for you based on your current level of fitness, your goals, and many other factors.
That’s why it’s important to take these numbers with a pinch of salt and if you think about it, that’s the ideal way to look towards them. You can start with as low as 25 pushups per day as long as you’re giving your 100 percent and keep trying to increase the number.
Another mistake that many boxers do in the beginning is they try to do as many pushups as possible within a certain time interval. This method is not recommended as it does not provide any extra benefits but might exploit you to potential injuries.
How Do Boxers Do PushUps?
Here’re a few of my tips to get the most out of this amazing exercise:
- Keep your back portion stright
- Try to keep your core engaged as much as possible
- Your hands must be wider than the shoulder width
- Place your palms flat on the floor
- Try to keep your butt down and not in a lifted position
- Your overall body must form a stright line
- Retain your hands and shoulders in one line
- Bend your elbows to 90°
- Hold the down position for some time
You can also check out this video:
Final Thoughts
Pushups is one of the basic yet very effective exercise that helps boxers to increase their core muscle strength while allowing them to deliver solid punches for an extended period of time. Pushups work on various muscle groups required for punching and make them stronger to avoid fatigue.
If you find this article helpful, make sure you read my other great resources listed below on boxing workouts and training: 🙂