Can Punching a Heavy Bag Help You Lose Weight?

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Can Punching a Heavy Bag Help you Lose Weight and Burn Calories

As a society, we moved from focusing solely on diets and herbs to widening the area to include certain cardio exercises for weight loss. We’ve also given a thought to fitness training. These ways have worked for tons of people and they’ve failed others.

But what exercises help you lose weight best. And which ones can you do at home – and most importantly for us at KNUXX, can punching a heavy bag help you lose weight?

Yes, punching a heavy bag can help you lose weight. If done properly, working out with a heavy bag can burn more calories than cycling, rowing, elliptical training or other exercises you can do at home. Punching a bag has shown to burn between 300-500 calories each hour depending on the workout & your weight!

As a society, we’re constantly looking for new ways to challenge ourselves and achieve those weight loss goals. One of those latest ways being whispered about is practicing throwing punches on a punching bag.

We’ve brought this here for you to answer your main question, “Can punching a heavy bag help you lose weight?” and if so “What are the best ways to approach losing weight by punching a bag?”

Here we go!

Punching a Heavy Bag is Clearly Effective

The clear answer to the previous question is that yes, punching bags definitely can help with your weight loss plans. But a lot of things can, the varieties of cardio are endless as well as other fitness workouts.

So your next question would be then: “Why should I choose this over the others?”

If you have limited time and can’t afford to put too much thought into it or stick to a time-consuming variety and so want one effective choice.

We’d answer this by answering the following questions.

What Does a Heavy Bag Do?

Having just one punching bag at home is like having an entire gym. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not a false one. Usually, workouts are just one thing or another. Running is just running and cycling is just cycling.

But there are endless ways you could punch or even kick a heavy punching bag. You could also shift your attention to other aspects, like speed or rhythm if you’re bored with focusing on strength. You could change your focus from one body part to the other as you punch.

This would make the time spent on the workout more fun and feel less like a chore.

How Many Calories Does Hitting a Heavy Bag Burn?

You can burn more calories with moderate boxing with a punching bag than with most other workouts, including cycling, at the same time limit. For example, a 155-pound person can burn about 450 calories in an hour. (Source)

I was actually shocked by that bit of information. I had no idea that you could burn that many calories by hitting a heavy bag!

So, this is definitely a good choice for you if you don’t have much time to give to exercises, but still want to lose weight.

What Does a Heavy Bag Do for Your Body?

To throw a right punch, you have to work around the bag in a particular way. This way gets you to engage your whole body; your core, upper, and lower body. As well as when throwing the punch itself, you have to use your feet, fist, and knees, while also engaging your shoulders and hips.

Again, with limited time, you want to work on your whole body and punching a heavy bag is perfect for this.

It also has a lot of non-weight loss benefits. It doesn’t just burn fat, but builds muscles and increases the strength of your whole body. It also enhances your stamina, power, core stability and endurance. Also, it helps a lot with stress and anxiety.

As it’s arguably a better substitution for punching real people, except when you need to. That is a good benefit too; it increases your self-defense skills.

What Else Do You Need to Know?

Now that we’ve laid out the benefits and effectiveness of punching heavy bags as a weight-loss strategy. We believe due to the amazing effect of our words that you’re all hyped up and ready to start right away, but you’re not sure what you need to know before starting.

No worries, we’ve got all the information you need.

You’re Not a Professional Boxer

This is quite obvious, we know. However, it’s something that has to be set in absolute clarity. Understanding that you’re not a boxer or any other martial artist that practices boxing will ease the way for you to understand what you need and don’t need.

You don’t have the same goals as a martial artist, so you don’t have to focus on multiple dimensions of boxing with a punching bag that may distract you and won’t help you with losing weight. This will affect how we view the following factors.

What Is the Best Type of Heavy Bag for Weight loss?

Heavy bags are in general more preferable than other punching bags because they get you to focus almost entirely on strength and resistance. Other types focus on other attributes like speed, rhythm, and timing, which are crucial for professional boxers or other martial artists, but not really important for people who mainly want to lose weight.

The size of your heavy bag should correlate with your weight. For example, if you weigh 160 pounds then you should get a 60-80 pounds bag. The bag should be on a slightly higher level than your strength as to challenge you and offer resistance, but not to the extent that it’s crippling.

Check out our Heavy Bag Buying Guide to get more information on the best heavy bags for weight loss.

How to Start

As with all workouts, before starting, you should do a warm-up. After you’re done, wrap your hands to protect yourself from hand or wrest injury, and start your rounds.

Rounds should be at least 1 minute each with rest intervals. As you get better, increase round time and decrease rest time for enhanced effectiveness.

Conclusion; Can Punching a Heavy Bag Help you Lose Weight? YES!

We’ve covered all the pressuring questions you might have, most importantly “Can a punching bag help you lose weight?” We’ve given you enough information to start you up with this routine.

This, plus healthy eating plans will definitely help you achieve your weight loss goals.