Heavy Bag Training

Lose Weight with Heavy Bag Workouts

Heavy bag training is an excellent way to lose weight due to the high calorie burn. A person weighing 76 kg (167 lbs) can burn around 600 kcal per hour during a session.

Heavy Bag Training for Beginners

Almost every kickboxing gym offers beginner-friendly heavy bag classes. These sessions focus on learning proper technique to build a strong foundation for future progress.

Tips for Beginners

1. Start slow: Gradually increase the intensity of your workouts. This helps prevent injury and gives you time to gain control over your movements.
2. Focus on technique first: Master the correct execution before trying to go faster or harder. This will make your training more effective and reduce the chance of developing bad habits.

Starting slow and focusing on proper technique go hand in hand. Execute each strike at a pace that allows you to do it perfectly. With practice, you’ll naturally be able to increase your intensity while maintaining form.

If you start with full intensity without proper technique, your strikes may feel clumsy, inefficient, or unbalanced. Research shows that unlearning incorrect movements takes far more effort than learning them correctly the first time. While a proper technique might take around 300 repetitions to learn, correcting a bad habit may take over 3,000. This is because your brain builds specific neural pathways when learning movement patterns—laying them correctly early on results in faster and smoother development.

Heavy Bag Training at Home

If you want to get the most out of your home heavy bag workouts, consider the following:

• As mentioned above, start slow and prioritize technique. At home, you won’t have a coach to correct you, so it's easy to develop bad habits unknowingly.
• Use a timer or round app. No one will keep track of rounds for you at home, but apps or timers make it easy to stay on schedule.

Here are four different interval structures with specific goals:

1. Fat Burning & Conditioning
   Goal: Raise heart rate and burn fat
   Focus: High output with simple combos
   Interval: 30 sec all-out, 15 sec rest (10 rounds)
2. Explosiveness & Power
   Goal: Maximize force and impact
   Focus: Hit the bag as hard as possible, one technique per round
   Interval: 10 sec full power, 30 sec active rest (8 rounds)
3. Endurance & Mental Toughness
   Goal: Improve stamina and perseverance
   Focus: A full minute at high intensity is long—push through, especially the last 10 seconds
   Interval: 1 min all-out, 30 sec rest (5–6 rounds)
4. Technique & Precision
   Goal: Perfect execution and balance
   Focus: Moderate pace, flawless combos including feints and counters
   Interval: 45 sec controlled, 15 sec rest/evaluation (8 rounds)

Sample Heavy Bag Training Plan

For a one-hour workout, start with a 5–10 minute warm-up, choose two goals from the intervals above, perform two sets of each, then finish with core exercises and a cooldown.

Looking for the right equipment to train at home? Browse our collections of punching bags, boxing gloves, hand wraps, and protective gear to get fully equipped.

Also read our Ultimate Guide: Boxing Gloves for Beginners and our blog on Complete Boxing Gear Checklist for even more tips on home boxing.