1-Hour Boxing Workout

Even if you have just one free hour a day, it's possible to develop your skills as a boxer. With a long list of drills and exercises at your disposal, you can customize your hour-long workout to focus on what you want to get out of the sport. Or, for variety, try a different type of hour-long workout several days a week.

Most boxing workouts should include a series of basic drills, but if you want to strictly focus on them, it's easy to fill up an hour. Begin your workout with a 10-minute warm-up period that includes stretching and jumping rope. Learn to develop your technique through three, three-minute rounds with one-minute breaks of shadowboxing in front of a mirror. Working the heavy bag takes up a significant part of many boxing workouts, so aim for five, three-minute rounds with a minute break between each. Spend the rest of the roughly 20 minutes working with a trainer or partner wearing focus mitts.

It's important for a boxer to develop his cardio to help him have endurance late in a fight. It's possible to squeeze a number of cardio exercises into your hour-long workout to help build your stamina. After stretching for five minutes, jump rope for 15 minutes, and then run outdoors or on a treadmill for 20 minutes. Spend the remaining third of the workout doing shadowboxing; doing so after running helps simulate what you'll feel late in a fight when your legs are tired.

Boxers typically include some weight training in their daily workouts or focus on weights during one or two workouts per week. After five minutes of stretching and 10 minutes of jumping rope to get warmed up, try three rounds of shadowboxing while holding 3-pound dumbbells. Spend the duration of the hour doing any combination of dumbbell curls, triceps dips, bench presses and plyometrics. Body-weight exercises, such as pushups, crunches and planks, are also effective.

If you want to develop yourself as a boxer with the hopes of competing, include sparring drills in your workout at least once a week. On sparring days, spend five minutes stretching and 10 minutes jumping rope to get warmed up. Shadowboxing for three, three-minute rounds will help prepare you to step in the ring. If you're a beginner, three rounds of light sparring is more than enough; as you get more used to the exercise, aim for five rounds. After sparring, spending a few minutes talking with a trainer can help you learn what you need to develop.