Small boxing handbook

Small boxing handbook
Written by: Jeffrey Koelewijn from Holland

The most basic boxing rules:
Only punches
Don't hit a downed opponement
No punches to the back and neck
No punches below the belt

Weight classes: In kg
Super heavyweight    91+
Heavyweight             81-91
Light heavyweight    75-81
Middleweight            69-75
Welterweight             64-69
Light welterweight    60-64
Lightweight               56-60
Bantamweight           52-56
Flyweight                  49-52
Light flyweight         46-49


If you want to start boxing you could think of what you
want to achieve,
or what the reasons are for starting boxing:
To become a champion.
Be a professional boxer.
Be an amateur boxer.
For self defence reasons.
For building stamina and cardio and for basic health.
Just for fun.


Fighting stance:
One leg forward and one leg backward.
The feet should be placed slightly wider than the hips.
A fighting stance should be confortable
and the gloves are held slightly in front of the face.


Put your thumb over your fingers not under your fingers
when making a fist.


Punches:
Direct punch
Hook
Uppercut


Punches can be done to the head or the body
Two famous body blows are the liver blow
and the plexus blow
But most knockouts are done by hitting the jaw or the head
Kind of punches:
Normal punches
 good amount of speed and power
Stamina punches
 Weak punches
Fast punches
Power punches
 Just the hardest punch possible to make

The gaurd:
Basic and normal gaurd:
 The hands are held up protecting the face
 while the underarms protect the lower body
 One hand, the jab hand or the hand of the front leg is slightly
 in front of the face and the other hand around the jaw or temple area
Peek a boo (or turtle style):
 Hands are just in front of the face while one can just peek over the hands
One arm up one arm down style:
 one arm is high by the face mostly protecting the opposite jaw
 while the other one is around lower body, abdominal height.
 For a left leg forward fighter the left hand should be held low
 around the lower body, abdominals of the other side of the body.
Loose style:
 The guard changes up and no guard is used here and there.
No guard style:
 the arms are basicly down
 Mostly done with a lot of movement and keeping the right amount of distance
 and evading punches.


Fighting styles
Out fighter:
 Seeks to maintain distance between himself and his opponent
 fighting with faster, longer ranged punches like the jab
 and wears his opponent down.
 They have a very good ability to control the pace of the fight.
Counter puncher:
 Mostly defensive fighters who use the power of the opponements punch
 momentum to punch them harder.
Brawler:
 Mostly lacks (advanced)footwork and some fighting skills but makes
 up for it with a lot of brawling and hard punches.
 Not a technical figher.
In fighter:
 stays close to an opponent and constantly treis to get
 in close.
Slugger:
 A hard puncher. A power puncher.


Tip: Do a good warming up

Mitts and punches:
Can also be done by holding the gloves up
You need a partner for this
And a lot of combinations are possible here are a couple of them:
L is left R is right
L straight, R straight
L straight, R hook
L straight, R hook, L hook
L straight, R hook, L uppercut
L straight, R straight, L hook
L straight, R straight, L hook, R hook
L straight, R hook, L uppercut, R hook
L straight,
L straight,
R hook, L hook, R hook
R straight, L straight, L hook
R uppercut, L hook, R hook
L straight, R straight, L straight, R hook
L straight, R hook, L hook, R uppercut
R straight, L straight
R hook, L hook
L straight, L hook
R straight, R straight
R body hook, R uppercut
L straight, R hook to the body, R hook to the head
L uppercut, R hook, L straight, R straight
L straight, L hook, R hook, L uppercut
R hook, R hook, L hook, R hook

Shadow boxing:
Without punching:
 Just moving around in the ring or in an open space
 moving forward moving backward
 circling to the left circling to the right
 moving in and out moving to the corner moving out of the corner
Can be made harder by holding small dumbells
Or doing calve raises in between to strengthen the calves
You can do 1 or 2 or 3 minute rounds
A boxing match is a  2 or 3 minute round
This exercise can also be done with a partner
Shadow boxing with throwing punches(without a partner):
 Move around and throw punches
 evading punches can also be practised and
 Sometimes the punches are only done half

Sparring:
 Wearing protective gear like a mouthprotector
 and headgear is adviced
Sparring is something like a semi or semi and
a quarter contact fight to prevent injuries and have
a good spar and to prepare for matches
Sometimes the sparring goes to just below an actual boxing match
Tips:
 Have a good gaurd
 move around
 Throw punches
 Evade punches
 Block punches
and have fun

Bag and heavy bag training
 Some people wrap their hands
 And wearing boxing gloves is better for the hands
A lot of punches and combinations are possible
but uppercuts are hard to do against a heavy bag or boxing bag
Mostly the bag is punched for 2 or 3 minutes
But some punch a bag for a quarter to half an hour without rest to
build up stamina
Mixing it up:
 A workout I thought of:
 Do a 100 normal punches randomly with combinations of 2 to 5
 Keep some rest
 Do 10 power punches with left and right
 Keep some rest
 Do a 100 stamina punches after each other without rest(not to fast)
 Keep some rest
 Do 10 speed punches with left and right
 Keep some rest
 Do 1x a 100 normal punches randomly with combinations of 2 to 5
 Keep some rest
 Do 1x a 100 normal punches randomly with combinations of 2 to 5
 Another one:
 Do a 75 normal punches randomly with 1 to 5 punches a time
 Keep some rest
 Do 10 power punches with the jab
 Keep some rest
 Do 10 power punches with the right(left for right leg forwarded fighters)
 Keep some rest
 Do a 75 normal punches randomly with 1 to 5 punches a time


Other equipment:
Double end ball; is fixed to the ceiling with one part and the
 other part is fixed to the ground
Speedball, speedbag is fixed to a wooden platform and bounces
 back and forth when you hit it


Jabs:
Jabs are very important and are done with the arm of the front leg
Jabs can also be done with one hand behind the back
Doing 50, 100, 250, 500 or maybe even a 1000 jabs
If you want a powerfull or very fast jab I'd advice to not go over
50 - 150 jabs but if you want stamina in jabbing
you could go to those 1000 jabs.

Power punch:
Having a strong and powerfull punch is very usefull
a powerfull punch is generated and starts at the ground.
By using the tripple extension heels knees and hips
Weight shifting
And twisting the body
-Do a wind up, small wind up and then punch
A lot of force can be generated
Note that you need a strong lower and upper
body to complete the kinetic chain if the chain
is broken by weaknesses from the body the power will not
be the same.
Also be carefull not to walk in to a punch as it will
conect harder than normall because of the collision force of
your own forward momentum.


Clinching:
Holding on or hanging on the opponement.
Is normally always stopped by the referee to continue the match
It's done to stop the opponement or because of being to tired
Or just because the two fighters are to close to each other
It can be used as a strategie


Corckscrew punch:
A little twist on the end to increase knock out power
very effective on the jaw area.
-Was more effective with bare knuckles

With one eye open:
During a fight sweat or blood can come in to the eye or the eye
can get swollen creating a blind spot.
Training with one eye closed left or right can prepare for
this situation.
Shadow boxing, sparring, using the mitts or heavy bag work
can be used while training like this
I would not advice to do this often just very sometimes.
-Offcourse if you have this problem often you could do
 this more often.


Cardio, callisthenics and plyometrics:
Basic conditioning
 Running, swimming or cycling
 And jumping and sprinting for explosive power
Callisthenics:
 Squats
 Push ups
 Sit ups
 Pull ups
Isometrics like holding the hands at shoulder hight
or holding a push up stance (but don't get injured).
medicine ball work
Jump rope:
Great for building rythem and stamina
-With two feet
-Skipping
  one foot after the other
Variations for jump rope:
Doubles or triples
 Make the rope go by 2 or 3 times in one go
 it's easier to do 5 or 10 normal
 ones and then one double
Crossing
 The arms cross while doing a jump rope
Exercises for flexebility and stability


Winning a match:
A match can be won;
 By knock out, KO
  When the opponement is down for 10 seconds
  or by referee decision
 By points
 By forfeit
  When the towel is thrown inside the ring
 By docters decision
  Possibly when the opponement is bleeding too much for example
  or can't continue according to the docter
A draw is also possible when the two fighters
have an equal amount of points.

A double knock out where both fighters go down at the same time
is also possible.

Other tips:
 Don't look to much where you're going to punch
 Keep breathing
 Eyes on the opponent and stay focused
 Keep hydrated and drink enough water