25 Mar Boxing – the new cycling!
As close to my heart as cycling is, can’t help but loving the new trend of boxing. As I have mentioned before, what’s great about cycling is the recovery time. That is, not only the short time taken to recover from a hill or sprint actually during the ride, but more importantly how pain free you feel the day after. Exercise should be enjoyable, you should be counting down the minutes till the next time you can swim, run or ride.
Boxing is getting a great deal of positive press at the moment. Author Tony Parsons is a keen protagonist. If you search on the internet you will find a recent piece he did for GQ Magazine proposing why we should “RE” introduce boxing to our schools. It’s brilliant, I couldn’t agree more. It teaches respect on so many levels, and in this age of Health and Safety madness, a bit of contact isn’t that bad for our beloved kids.
On a musculo-skeletal level, I can’t recommend it enough. Boxing isn’t about hitting someone hard, it’s about balance, weight transfer, central stability, and most importantly, NOT GETTING HIT! And Men beware, Women are generally easier to coach than us because they tend to have better rhythm and co-ordination. I truly believe we are finally leaving the safe gym environment where expensive resistance machines enable you to, for instance, isolate the anterior portion of your deltoid muscle! What’s the point, how is that going to help you in day to day functional activities?
Openhealth Clinic has always promoted functional training and rehabilitation. Central to that is spinal core stability. This has been proven to reduce lower back injuries, and help prevent knee ligament ruptures. So my advice, give boxing a go. It will teach you more about your body than you could ever believe!
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