How to Build a Home Boxing Gym
The Heavybag
There is one piece of equipment that no boxing gym, however small, can do without: a heavybag. Working the heavybag combines cardio, resistance, and skills work all into one, and is the cornerstone of any boxing program.
When considering your heavybag, there are two key issues to consider: floorspace and ceiling height. Imagine where you want to put your bag. Ideally, you should be able to laterally move completely around the bag at least two steps distance from the bag. This gives you two things you will need for effective bag work: the ability to move in and out, and to move side to side. In an ideal world, finding this floorspace would never be a problem, but sometimes space is at a premium. It is possible to get by with only a half-circle’s worth of space. With the half-circle around the bag, you can still move in and out freely, and side to side to a large degree, although not with the liberty of a full circle around the bag. Anything less than this opens the door to learning bad habits. I have seen people hang heavybags in closets, for example. That is alright if you just want something to beat on, but in terms of skills you are training yourself the awful practice of standing right in front of someone and not moving. It is axiomatic that boxing is more about the feet than than hands; if you aren’t free to move and punch in your workout, you will only wind up learning very bad habits.
The next issue is ceiling height: is your ceiling high enough to allow a heavybag to swing freely? Unless you are building this gym in a garage or older style attic, or just very lucky, the answer is probably no. Fortunately there is a range of freestanding heavybags on the market that can be used as an effective substitute. A freestanding heavybag will also be your alternative if you do have the ceiling space, but no mounting point strong enough to support the weight of your heavybag.
If you do get a conventional heavybag, strongly consider using a water-filled variety. Since you can fill it with water once it is in position, and empty at will, getting the bag up or down will be a lot easier. Also, they are easier on your hands and wrists, reducing the chance of an injury in an unsupervised workout.
Other Punching Bags
Double-end bags are popular for working on handspeed, coordination, and certain head movement drills. These do have one advantage if you use a weighted platform for the floor mounting, instead of bolting the floor mount into position, you can take the double-end bag down when you are finished using it as a space-saving measure. However, if you have a low ceiling you will need to either modify your double-end bag rig with new bungee cords, or more likely, tie knots in the existing cords to shorten them.
A great bag for a home gym with low, basement ceilings and limited space is the uppercut bag. These bags don’t need the same head room that most conventional heavybags do, and because they are for working on infighting, they do not require the same floorspace that a heavybag would. If you have only a little room to work with, and are simply looking to supplement your gym routine, an uppercut bag is perfect. Otherwise, it is a good extra punching bag to add to a home gym, as it requires very little space, can be put up or taken down at will, and therefore constitutes an easy expansion to your training program.
Speedbag Platform
The speedbag is iconic, second only to the heavybag in terms of what people think of when they think “boxing exercise equipment.” They can be mounted in an out-of-the way location, require only as much space as you need to stand there, and have no headroom issues. The main problem is mounting them to the wall so they will stay there. These platforms are heavy and they vibrate. Even putting one in a brick wall with masonry screws or regular screws in lead plugs will eventually fail, as the speedbag’s vibrations will cause the brick around the screws to crumble. To use a speedbag at home, I have found it necessary to mount a wooden backing to the wall, and to then mount the platform onto that. This backing can take the form of either an appropriately-sized, thick plywood board for drywall or brick, or a pair of rails cut from 2x4s for brick. Attach your mounting to the brick wall or the wooden studs behind your regular drywall. Never try to mount a speedbag platform into drywall; this is a waste of time, as the drywall will crumble under the vibration even more quickly than brick. Then mount the speedbag platform into your wooden mounting point. The wood fiber is better at absorbing and dispersing the vibrations than brittle brick or gypsum.
Other Equipment
One of the beauties of boxing is that so much of the exercises typical to the training require little or no gear at all. The only thing you really need are the heavybag, hand-wraps, and bag gloves. Push-ups, bag work, crunches, and road work are the bare minimum for a home boxing training program. The rest is gravy.
On the cheap end of additional gear are a pull-up bar, jump rope, floor mat, wall mirror, and medicine ball. The pull-up bar will require care in mounting, but it is unobtrusive and can actually be installed anywhere in your residence, not just in the home gym. If you have low ceiling issues, then you will need to take the jump rope outside, but once again that is a minor detail. A floor mat will be handy for crunches, neck nods, stretches, and anything you might not want to do on a concrete or hardwood floor. The wall mirror can be useful for watching what your are doing in shadowboxing. Part of most medicine ball exercises can be done alone if you have one of those new air-filled medicine balls with a little bounce on them and a sturdy wall to fling the ball at. However, keep in mind the long-term effects of bouncing an 8-16lbs ball repeatedly off the the wall while choosing your site: that wall needs to be sturdy. A simple rope tied to hooks can serve as a line for slipping drills. All of these additions should be both cheap and easy.
Timer
When working out solo, you will need a timer to keep track of your rounds and rest intervals. You need not buy an actual electronic interval timer, although boxing equipment companies do sell them. Instead, take your iPod, other music player, or the music software on your computer, compose a play list entirely from songs that are roughly four minutes in length. That gives you a three minute round and a one minute rest interval, just like in the boxing gym, plus your own tunes. The first minute of the four minute song is your rest interval, and you keep an eye on the song timer. The remaining three minutes is the work period, so you stop when the song is over, and then start over again with the first minute of the next song. It’s not perfect, but it is a good way of improvising a timer with something you probably already have.
Cost
Using these tips, you can build a reasonable home gym cheaply. Your main concern is having enough floorspace for a proper workout. In terms of cost, a freestanding heavybag is typically more expensive than the conventional kind, but even so building a home gym with one heavybag of some kind, plus a few of the other equipment options, ought not to cost more than $500-800. That is cheap enough that the investment in a home boxing gym will pay for itself over health club dues in a matter of months; boxing gyms are typically cheaper than a health club, but even so your home gym will still pay for itself in roughly a year.
