- 1). Improve your cardiovascular fitness by running daily. Running, known as "road work" in boxing, helps improve your overall body fitness and endurance levels. Even with the right in-ring technique, you will not achieve success without the cardio to support yourself. Alternate long- and short-distance runs to work on speed and endurance.
- 2). Skip for 10 minutes at the start of every boxing workout to get your body warmed up, improve your foot speed and build muscle in your arms and back. Though skipping may sound easy, a 10-minute session is difficult until you build up to it.
- 3). Recruit a trainer or a knowledgeable boxer to explain the basic stance, footwork, punches and combinations, then practice the movements in front of a mirror. Practice moving forward, backward and pivoting while staying in a boxing stance and learn to throw crisp jabs, straight punches, crosses, hooks and uppercuts. Throw different combinations of the punches in rapid succession to improve your hand speed.
- 4). Punch a heavy bag to physically improve your stamina, foot work and power. Punching a heavy bag doesn't mean just standing in front of it and swinging. You should be in a boxing stance and move in, hit the bag and move out again. Work with a trainer who can call out combinations for you to throw and advise you of mistakes. Work on the heavy bag in three-minute rounds with one minute off between rounds to simulate a boxing match.
- 5). Hit a speed bag to improve your hand speed and timing. Don't punch the speed bag in the same manner you hit the heavy bag. Punching a speed bag should involve downward punches thrown as though you are chipping a block of ice with an ice pick.
- 6). Spar with a sparring partner to help build skill during actual fights. All the training in the world will not give you the same experience as physically being in a ring with another fighter. At the novice level, you and your partner should throw punches at no more than 50 percent power and work on defense as much as offense. A trainer should always be in the ring to enforce rules and offer suggestions.