Shadowboxing is Real Boxing (Training)

Shadowboxing is a pretty good way to train your fighting body, but it’s a very good way to train your fighting mind. Shadowboxing may be useful as a warmup, but its real use is as an effective training tool. Often you’ll see someone at the gym throwing punches at the air with complete abandon. There’s no skill developed. Their heart rate is picking up, but they’re also potentially picking up bad habits. Seemingly everything they may have learned over the years goes out the door and they’re simply punching for the sake of throwing a punch. Stop thinking of shadowboxing as a warm up and start thinking of it as training. It’s simply sparring with an imaginary partner.

It’s called “shadowboxing” because if you stand in the light it could look like you’re fighting your own shadow. But this wouldn’t work because it’s too choreographed. Your own shadow will move just as you move; an opponent would never do that. So use your imagination. Picture your opponent. If you have a fight upcoming against a southpaw, visualize a southpaw adversary so you can think about how they move and how you might counter and strike. Time your shots with their bobs and weaves. Practice your feinting and counter shots. Work on moving away from their advantage and towards yours. Jabs, combinations, body shots, defense - practice everything.

Don’t treat a shadowboxing session the way you would a set of jumping jacks or other calisthenics. While the body is moving, the mind should be engaged,  By coordinating your body and mind, actions and reactions can start to become automatic and effortless. When you can slow down your thinking during a fight you become a more fluid fighter. So use shadowboxing as a means to practice this body and mind coordination.

Instead of simply standing in place throwing punches, work on your footwork, work on defense, work the corners, work the ropes. Whether you’re in a ring or your living room or whatever space you have at your disposal, treat your surroundings as if there were boundaries and use the space as you would in competition. Even though you have no opponent you can still practice your ring generalship. Practice working in close quarters, putting into a corner, fighting off the ropes, chasing a running target, etc.

You might try setting up a slip line and shadowbox around the rope to add the effect of slipping, dodging, ducking, and ultimately avoiding punches. The line becomes the angle of an incoming attack. Again, visualize an opponent so you have a target as well as an attacker. Slip a punch and throw a counter combination. Throw a straight right and slip the counter.

Even though you’re not connecting with an actual target, throw your punches with a good measure of power. Snap her head back with those jabs. Make her feel your body shots. Put some juice into it. At the same time, don’t go overboard. Since there is no target to hit, it’s not difficult to hyperextend an elbow or strain a shoulder. Don’t get careless, you want intensity in your training, but with the lack of a landing pad, any punch you throw could be damaging to yourself. Find the right range and level of intensity and keep it there.

Of course shadowboxing is good for athletic conditioning too. Boxing is largely anaerobic so use this time to work on optimizing your breathing. Time your breaths to the action and keep the intensity up so your body has to learn to deal with deprived oxygen for periods of time.  

Shadowboxing should not be a mindless exercise. Deploy it as a true training tool. Whether you’re working outside of the gym, practicing for a future opponent, or trying to overcome some deficit in your technique, make it count.

Posted on June 16, 2015 .