As a person who refuses to sit still even on my lazy days, I have one million hobbies. One that I feel is worthy of discussion in the Icebox is boxing. Yes, the martial art where you throw up your fists and dance around your opponent.
One thing I will make clear is that I do not compete as a boxer. I started training in my junior year of high school, where I had both a coach and sparring mates. However, after breaking my wrist and taking too long to recover, I settled on maintaining boxing as a hobby. In some alternate universe out there, Freeze is a world-renowned martial artist. The type that fighting game developers would base their character off of.
I believe boxing might be one of the best ways to stay fit. The reason is because it involves multiple angles of training and discipline. It is not just about throwing out punches and beating up a boxing bag. The whole process of perfecting one’s form and keeping the body in shape is a great blend of exercise and technique.
Any form of exercise that challenges your determination, adaptation and consistency is a good form of exercise. Boxing takes it a step further by adding a factor of technique and strength that, if you fail to meet, you fail the training entirely. Basically, doing one thing is simply not enough. If you don’t check the boxes for the whole process, then most of your exercise is rendered useless.
At the same time, I don’t think it’s all that taxing either. It requires a lot of patience, especially if you’re starting from scratch. Actually, even if you have been lifting weights most of your life, it will take you a while to get used to the boxing regimen.
The easiest way to drive this point home is to explain what boxing training entails. If I were to break it down into three parts, I would say running, forming and building strength.
Running is a very important part of becoming a fighter. Most people who lift weights, like powerlifters, tend to avoid cardio and running. I have many friends who think running isn’t worth their time, which means their strength ultimately goes to waste. Is there really a point to having a nice body if you can’t use it?
Running is how you primarily train endurance. As a boxer, you should run everyday at the same time. The session should be a jog that engages your heart and lungs, and the distance should be enough to make you feel exhausted. You can also dedicate at least two days per week to do sprints until failure in order to train your oxygen conversion and maximum capacities, but other aspects of boxing training often cover the high intensity already.
The forming aspect of boxing is where you are practicing technique and throwing punches. “Forming” is just a word that I am using to describe the process to you, an average reader of the Icebox. It is the bulk of the process and distinguishes fighting practices from other disciplines like cycling or swimming. In boxing, this involves shadow boxing, the bag, footwork, jump ropes, pad work, speed training and sparring.
The main goal is to perfect your technique as a fighter for when you’re in the ring or on the street. Most of this training is going to be high intensity, causing you to get winded, sore and sweaty. That is also how you know you are doing it right. One thing to note about forming is that sometimes you can stand in place and complete most of the course. Therefore, even on a lazy day you can accomplish a lot! Although, I still recommend moving around as much as you can while practicing your technique.
Finally, there is strength training. This is the part that most people have down pretty easily. You choose a weekly split and work out all of your muscles. Lift weights, hit personal records, engage your core and build up your strength. It is also important to use resistance training to increase your speed.
Weighted exercises are better for shaping up, while resistance training is good for increasing the agility of your movements. Both of these, at the end of the day, emphasize strength and its effective use. That is why strength is nothing without technique, though technique can be effective even without overwhelming strength!
Pretty neat, right? Now you understand why boxing isn’t terribly complicated when you are doing it for your personal improvement. It will still take a lot of commitment, but that’s merely part of the discipline. If you can stay focused on your training, you can stay focused in your daily activities. You will notice a significant improvement in your daily life merely because you do training.
For example, you will naturally feel tired at a time of day where your sleep schedule becomes healthy. You will have the strength to wake up earlier and accomplish more. You will find that your body will start craving exercise at certain points throughout the day. Even your skin will improve in condition because of all the exfoliation from getting heated up! Best of all, you won’t even care about doomscrolling anymore. Your human essence will become above that worthless digital garbage.
Out of all the physical activities I have done in my life, I think I am most proud to have picked up boxing for these reasons. Due to my career choices, I do not have time to pursue boxing at a competitive level, but doing it for personal improvement is still absolutely wonderful.
There are many other things to consider, of course. For example, learning to read your opponent, adjusting your diet, dancing around, perfecting your guard, improving your reaction time and dealing with burnout or disadvantage. Some of these apply to a real fight, while others contribute to your quality of life.
Before you begin your training, I recommend writing down your goals. Do you want to be physically fit? Do you want to improve your endurance? Do you want to be physically stronger? Do you just want to do it for fun and gradually get more serious? All of these are valid reasons. As long as you stick with your game plan and commit every single day, you will be headed in the right direction. Actually, you can even take a few breaks and cheat days here and there. It doesn’t hurt as long as you stay on track!
Finally, I want to highlight the value of watching a professional. Previously, I have discussed fighting games here at the Icebox. One of the best ways to improve at them is to watch and emulate the top players. Similarly, you can learn techniques and strategies from top boxers and martial artists. If you are training personally, you can decide for yourself if there are some techniques you want to learn.
For example, I actually learned a lot about boxing through an anime called “Hajime no Ippo”. I know that may sound silly, but the anime is the result of a man who was very passionate about boxing and decided to write a manga that takes inspiration from real professionals and techniques throughout history.
I originally picked up the anime because I was already interested in boxing and needed to practice immersing myself in the Japanese language. However, the main character is such an inspiration that I ended up improving my own daily routine. Furthermore, I was able to learn about techniques like the flicker, hitman style, corkscrew, smash-punch, Dempsey roll and much more just from the anime alone.
I promise this issue of the Icebox is not just an advertisement for “Hajime no Ippo”, though I highly recommend it as it is easily in my top five anime of all time. I hope that my insight about boxing could inspire some of you readers to “step into the ring!”