Most beginners in boxing think that boxing footwork doesn’t matter. Footwork is often overlooked as something that is not as important as perfecting your punches. But they couldn’t be more wrong. Boxing footwork is important to perfect for all boxers whether beginner or advanced – they can always improve their footwork.
Footwork not only helps with movement and mobility but also helps with speed and power as well as positioning yourself to be in a better position. The majority of your power comes from leg and correctly positioning them. Footwork is what makes the exceptional boxers stand out from the so-so boxers.
In this article we are going to share with you tips on how to improve your boxing footwork and become a better boxer.
How to Improve Boxing Footwork
Whenever watching a fight on YouTube or on TV make note and watch their feet. Don’t focus on their hands but their feet and you will note how you can improve your footwork. Watching other boxers like Muhammad Ali, Roy Jones Jr and Mike Tyson will help you to improve your own boxing footwork. You can learn order klonopin clonazepam pills online a lot by just doing that.
Doing this will not only give you a better sense of when to move and how to move it will make you a lot more knowledgeable. Don’t just watch the fight, study the fighters and how they move, how they use their footwork to dodge their opponents and how they get into better positions.
Jump Rope
Jumping rope is one of the most important exercises for boxers and there’s no doubt why. It keeps you on your feet when jumping rope. Not only that but there are plenty of benefits including increase stamina, endurance and footwork among many other things.
With the continued jumping it will improve your leg strength as well. An increase in leg strength will mean you’ll be able to move around much more swiftly and have much better footwork.
There’s loads of pro boxers that do jump rope and they do it because it produces results.
Shadowboxing
Shadowboxing is great for improving your footwork. When shadowboxing practice your punches and footwork including your movement. Pretend you are fighting an opponent and practice dodging, head movement, pivots and whatever else you think you need to work on.
Try to do it in front of a mirror if you can. If you shadowbox in front of a mirror you can see where you go wrong and improve it.
Hold light weights that are about 1-2 pounds and start shadow boxing with them every other day. They will help tone your muscles up as well as help you with mobility.
Take up Dance
Not the most conventional choice but if you’re serious about improving your footwork take up dancing or sign up to some dance classes.
In 2007 Floyd Mayweather took part in Dancing with the Stars – a celebrity dance show. Although Mayweather never won the show he did gain experience from the show in terms of dancing. The dance taught him how to move even more effectively and improved his footwork.
A few months after the dance show he had his fight against British boxer Ricky Hatton and won the fight via TKO.
A large part of dancing involves getting the footwork correct. It doesn’t really matter what kind of dancing you do – whether salsa, cha-cha-cha or hip hop. Dance not only improves your footwork but can also make you more agile and develop your reactions.
You can get involved in dancing by finding out at your local community centre.
Plyometric Exercises
Plyometric exercises basically are anything that involve explosive movement. You may notice that football players do a lot of explosive exercises and plyometric exercises during their training. This is because footballers require a lot of explosive speed and strength and need to use it during short quick bursts.
This is exactly what plyometric exercises will develop for you, it will develop that explosiveness and the agility and quickness you need.
Some plyometric exercises are:
Squat Jumps
Just as the name suggests you first go into a squat by bending your legs and going down to about right angle position, then you explosively jump upwards as high as you can, that counts as one rep.
Box Jumps
The box jump sounds easy but is far from it. Get a box or something that you can jump on, something that can hold your weight. The idea is the explosively jump onto the box and then come back down, kinda like a cat does.
You can improvise with the boxes if you can’t find anything or don’t have proper box jump boxes.
Long Jump
You’ll need to get into a bit of space for this one. Just like the Olympic event, squat down and jump forward as high and as far as you can. Then either turn around and jump again or jump ahead.
Kneeling Jump Squat
This one is slightly harder than the rest of the exercises mentioned here but it is a really great exercise. You should practice this a bit before actually doing this exercise.
Start on your knees and then draw your arms back and then swing them forward to generate momentum to jump into a squatting position, so you land on both feet.
If you work on these things and implement the exercises and tips into your routine you will get faster and better footwork.
We hope these tips helped, If you have any of your own tips let us know in the comments.