Boxing bags are and have always been a great cardio exercise, especially fitting for those who play the sport. But if you can’t have a punching bag in your home because of spatial limitations or simply because it’s too hard to install, here is a list of boxing bag alternatives for you!
What Boxing Bag Alternatives?
It is hard to find the optimal substitute for a boxing bag, offering the same features. Nevertheless, there are some alternatives with fewer drawbacks that you can consider:
- Free-standing Bag:
The only feature that makes a free-standing punching bag different from your typical one is you do not need to hang it on the ceiling. Moreover, the word “free-standing” on the bag’s label has a simple meaning: The cylinder stands atop an empty block that you can fill with anything from water, rocks to sand. The weight of the block will keep the bag stable.
A free-standing bag will be the first choice
Some manufacturers allow their buyers to customize the height of the bag and the block, which aims to completely eradicate the risk of the bag touching the ceiling.
Other than that, a free-standing punching bag is padded, and it provides you with the same amount of resistance you get from the popular kind.
- Wooden Dummies:
If you have ever lived in China or are familiar with Chinese culture, you will likely know about the “muk yan jong” – or wooden dummies. Specifically, they are an essential part of any martial arts training ground and extremely effective at training strategies and move sets.
Rather than being the straightforward replacement to traditional punching bags, the wooden dummy has attack surfaces as well as bars protruding from the body. When you attack the dummy, it will spin, and the bars will hit you as counter-attacks. This feature accurately reflects how your opponent in fights will hit back at you, so having a ready-to-go move set is great for training with dummies.
However, there is one downside to utilizing a dummy in place of a punching bag: Wooden dummies are not easy to find, and they usually cost you about four to five times the price tag on normal padded bags, all because the dummy’s body is made of a solid block of high-quality wood to ensure the best experience for users.
Nevertheless, wooden dummies don’t take up too much space in your room or damage your ceiling!
- Kick Shields:
Punching a bag on your own can be quite lonesome. Thus, some boxers tend to practice in pairs or groups to test out their ability to improvise on the spot and defend themselves. If you are among this kind of trainer, then you (and your partners) are going to love kick shields.
The kick shields are popular towards a group practice
These pads are made of thick foam and won across your arm. Imagine those big medieval shields you usually see in Hollywood movies, and you’d get a bit of an idea of what the kick shields look like. Usually, one boxer of the pair will don the shield, and the other person will practice landing their hits and kicks onto the foam pad.
As they have a flat foam surface that’s easier on your legs and knuckles to lower the risk of injuries, incorporating kick shields into your training routine can also help you get creative with the exercise and have fun with the session.
The only setback to using a kick shield or several of them is that you cannot use them without a partner. Other than that, they are a solid choice of exercise!
- Improvised Surfaces:
If you can’t afford a punching bag or cannot have it in your home, you may want to rearrange your space. There are quite a few ways to do this if we are honest with you since the sky’s the limit:
- Head out to a forest/garden, and you can tie pads onto a tree bark with some ropes to practice. The tree is firm enough not to give in to any damage you do with it, but because of that, don’t use all your force, or you will break your hand.
- Tie a sofa cushion to a column or a pillar will give you the same result as the plan above. Safety warnings are the same: Pull your punches and kicks unless a bruised leg and bloody knuckles are signs of accomplishment to your standards.
These suggestions are in no way up to standards, but they are suitable replacements for the time being or while you’re searching for a facility to train in!
Outro:
This is the conclusion of our list of boxing bag alternatives! Not everyone can afford to participate, but the sports world has grown creative to let everyone in on the fun. Thanks to that, we now have these amazing tools to fit our needs. So which substitute or solution will you choose then?
