How to Get Started in Amateur Boxing

Learning combat sports at a dojo or boxing ring, and enjoying regular sports practice has multiple benefits to the physical and mental health of practitioners. Among the most popular sports disciplines in contact sports, are martial arts and mixed martial arts (MMA). In boxing, there are boxing variations such as: French boxing, Thai boxing (or Muay Thai), American boxing (or full contact), American kickboxing, Chinese boxing, Burmese boxing, and Khmer boxing. Under the name "martial art", we find viet va dao (vietnamese), taekwondo (south korean), aikido, karate, jujitsu, judo (japanese martial art), kung fu (chinese) or the krav maga (Israeli). Other martial arts from the United States emerged on the "market" of combat sports: Mixed Martial Arts (MMA or Free Fight), combining fighting techniques from boxing, fist fighting and kickboxing. What brings all these sports together, is the percussion by means of the punch and the kick, and the blow delivered by knee or elbow. You need to be physically strong and have a high level of endurance - you're body is the main weapon! In order to practice, you need to acquire a lot of self-control when punching, explosiveness, an infallible strength of mind (to hit the right place and win a fight against your opponent), good footwork and great agility. Faced with the recognized benefits of boxing, we witness a feminization and a dazzling democratization of combat sports (amateur boxing and boxing, body fight, cardio boxing, fitness boxing, etc ..), more women than ever are entering the boxing ring. But then, for boxing - how much does it cost to train and what are the health benefits? Superprof has prepared for its readers a detailed mini-guide to the boxing classes of the UK.

How Much Does it Cost to Learn to Box?

Subscribing to a sports complex or boxing gym can be expensive, especially when our disposable income is low. The history of boxing teaches us that  boxing in the UK, the US and France (savate) emerged in the ranks of the underprivileged and impoverished populations.

The sociology of sport confirms this analysis: in a book entitled Les Culturales Sportes published in 1995 by the sociologist C. Pociello, the author explores the sporting practice of the French according to their socioprofessional category. Reusing the social space peculiar to P. Bourdieu (1930-2002) - a chart that distributes symbolic capital endowment (economic, cultural and social) , C. Pociello schematises sports practices of practitioners according to their statutes. While hiking in the mountains or walking in the wilderness might be the prerogative of higher intellectual professions (with a strong economic and cultural capital), boxing and sports fights, are practiced by the popular classes, those of which the cultural and economic capital endowment is weak. All this to illustrate that joining a sports club to take English boxing classes or American or French boxing classes, can represent a hard financial sacrifice when it is already difficult to meet pre-committed expenses. Before joining a boxing gym we must first target a set of parameters:

• What kind of boxing do you want to practice? (French, English, Thai, American Boxing),
• Which boxing course formula do you want? (boxing, pro boxing, competitive boxing),
• What type of audience do you respond to? (boxing, women's boxing, teens, children),
• Where to go for your boxing training? (gym boxing or private lessons)?

We cannot catalogue all the prices charged in all sports clubs in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, a general trend that still emerges is the "relative market price" of a good or a service.

How much does Private Boxing Lessons Cost?

On the Superprof platform, for example, the average prices for a boxing class and coaches are as follows, by location:

• London:  £15 - £30 / hour,
• Manchester: £15 / hour,
• Dorking: £35 / hour
• Cornwall: £5 / hour,

Learn to Box in Boxing Gyms

Given that there are more than a dozen sports clubs per city, it is impossible for us to indicate all the rates. Most of the time, a boxing gym offers its courses in yearly or monthly packages, and sometimes by the quarter. A free trial is often possible, which may give you time to confirm your new passion before committing.

To establish a registration file, a medical certificate and membership payment may be required.

Some gyms offer classes and equipment free with membership, such as the headgear, mitt, a jump rope or punchbag otherwise it can cost about £20 a lesson in a specialised boxing gym. In addition, it will often be necessary to acquire one's own boxing equipment:

• Boxing gloves,
• Under-gloves and mittens,
• Mouthguard,
• Chest protector,
• Shin pads,
• Knee and elbow pads (for Thai boxing and mixed martial arts),
• Boxing helmet,
• Cup,
• Boxing shoes or trainers,
• Boxing shorts.

Find out just how much boxing lessons near me cost

The Benefits of Learning Boxing for Women

Boxing is one of the most complete high-intensity sports disciplines, this full body workout best improves fitness, stamina, coordinator, muscle building and the feeling of well-being.

For a woman, there are many good reasons to get into women's boxing. The combination of a full body workout and cardiovascular activity means that boxing is a highly effective way to get in shape. An hour of training in an English boxing gym would be more effective indeed than a session in a weight room and can include anything from skipping and circuits to push ups, squats and boxing drills. In addition to channeling energy and evacuating stress, boxing also allows you to lose weight quickly, to strengthen your buttocks and sculpt your abdominals. This is why - in part - boxing attracts women: women's boxing allows a good conviviality between women, to regain self-confidence, and to take part in an excellent cardio training program.

Women's boxing is a complete sport that works on the body and the mind: women fight to work on all the muscles of the human body: biceps, triceps, legs, glutes, abdominals. The boxer can therefore lose weight, refine her silhouette and shape her tummy and gluteal muscles.

Putting on boxing gloves allows you to tone up, stay in shape and stimulate your physical qualities: hopping into the boxing ring, executing an uppercut, a hook, a circular kick, dodge, etc. you can burn more calories than swim training! Women's boxing finally allows any woman, even a beginner, to learn self-defense to overcome her fears of traveling alone in the streets of a large metropolis. Find out more about women's boxing classes

Boxing Classes for Women: Combat or Fitness?

Faced with the massive enthusiasm that the women's boxing class has provoked over the last twenty years, many providers have found ways to get even more women into the combat sport, and into the ring by offering different boxing classes for women.

How? By integrating boxing and cardio training lessons into their fitness clubs. Fitness boxing classes allow women to take part in an intense cardio workout with weight training that will work individual muscle groups one at a time.  The advantage of mixing English Boxing or French Savate boxing and Fitness is that the practitioners will train in group lessons, with music, while working the muscles of the upper and lower body. To improve overall physical figure, French Savate boxing is great - with jumping rope, a three-minute ring fight, and kickboxing classes- interspersed with bodybuilding techniques, which will produce drastic results. A warm-up of 15 to 20 minutes continues with shadow boxing. Shadowboxing is an exercise used in the training for most combat sports, especially, as its name implies, in boxing. It is used mainly to prepare the muscles before the person training engages in stronger physical activity. In shadowboxing, only one person is required to participate; the participant throws punches at no one in particular. The work out is continued by strengthening muscles and learning moves upon moves, ending with the always important stretch session. Upon this model, the athlete can engage in a high-intensity athletic program and achieve maximum results regarding their fitness goals. Fight boxing, for example, can bring together in one session boxing, kickboxing, karate, taekwondo, Thai boxing, tai chi chuan and capoeira. So, for women's boxing: fitness or fight? One would be tempted to answer "both, my captain! ": for you cannot achieve one without the aide of the other.  

Beginning to Box with a Private Coach!

One may be fiercely opposed to group classes in a gym or a boxing dojo. If so, there is an alternative that will reassure anyone suffering from anxiety or social phobia: the individual or private boxing with a coach.

Getting physical training from an instructor - a personal boxing coach - is also a way to progress faster and challenge yourself: you can be a beginner and aim to compete in regional championships (for competitors). You can learn how to throw blows and you can take the time you need to assimilate them, while an adult course in group lessons will require more to follow the progress initially decided by the coach. We all have the image of the film Million Dollar Baby (2004), where Maggie comes to let off steam towards punching bags and exceed her limits to reach the highest level of competition. What the film does not say is the price it suggests: benefiting from a personal trainer is inevitably more expensive than the annual subscription to an English boxing club. On Superprof, our private boxing lessons are established in cities all over the UK: to have an athletic body, and to choose the right programme for you. Only you can best explain your personal goals to a coach, who will adapt in function.