Shadowboxing 101
Shadowboxing is one of the most simple and fundamental methods that a Boxer can use to improve and practice their Boxing technique everyday. What is shadowboxing? At the bare minimum it is practicing boxing footwork, head movement, or punching without any equipment. This is easily done first by finding an empty space, whether it be a garage, parking lot, or at the gym. Secondly its important to be intentional in answering "what is my goal here" before starting because its an exercise that can easily turn into a waste of time due to its lack of structure.
Here are three methods to use your time well while shadowboxing:
Isolate a specific movement.
Take one technique, or a set of techniques, and repeat that movement or set of movements again and again for a set period of time. This will help improve : Muscle Memory. By simplifying, repeating the same motion again and again, it makes it easier to focus, feel out the movement, make adjustments, improve the function of the movement, and make visible progress towards an area of your technique that needs to be worked.
Focus your attention inwardly:
Standing in front of a mirror is definitely useful, but it can also be distracting. Sometimes it may bring your thoughts to "how do I look" rather than "how does my technique look" which only wastes precious training time. So instead of standing in front of a mirror, sometimes step out into an open area and focus your attention inwardly to "how does this punch "feel". This is called Kinesthetic awareness.
This allows us to make our movements smoother and more natural. Focusing inwardly to how our punches feel also will help us improve our mechanics, and "flow" or natural movement of punches. Leveraging our bodies natural mechanics will help us leverage our punches with other parts of our body, rather than forcing our punches with our shoulders and arms.
Practice "Real Punches"
While shadowboxing is an excellent warm up exercise, where we can start slow and gradually pick up the pace. We also have to recognize and step up the activity to more of our workout mindset when our body is ready to go.
One thing I hate to see is Boxers who spend lengthy time shadowboxing, but only restrict their movements to "half punches" which take less energy, and are not necessarily improving muscle memory and technique.
When our bodies are warmed up, put an invisible opponent in front of you, and throw your punches with the same volume and intensity you would as if you were sparring that invisible opponent. If you do shadowboxing in the right way, it can be a workout by itself.
But you have to mentally commit to pushing your self throughout the whole round. Its very easy to let yourself relax and go back to what feels comfortable to you, which obviously makes the exercise much easier.
Next time you plan out a training routine, put more intentional thought into how you can use the highly versatile art of shadowboxing to improve your Boxing skills. Be sure to catch yourself wasting time by "just moving your arms" or "going through the motions" because you could be wasting highly valuable training time!
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