Is Boxing Bad For Your Body

With over 20.000 pro fighters and millions of practitioners worldwide, boxing is among the most popular sport. However, it also has a reputation for being the most dangerous one. Is this true, is boxing bad for your body?

Boxing involves people striking each other with full-blown punches to the head and body. According to studies, it is the most dangerous combat sport when it comes to brain trauma and facial injuries.

So the reality is, yes, boxing is bad for your body.

This is just a brief explanation. Thus, read this article to learn more about injuries in boxing, and how to prevent them.

Is Boxing Bad For Your Body

According to statistics, boxing includes a high injury rate of 17.1 injuries per 1000 exposures. This puts it in second place just below MMA when it comes to the overall chance of suffering an injury in a fight. However, boxing is more dangerous if you solely focus on the severity of these injuries.

The reason why boxing is bad for your body is rooted in its simplicity. The rules enable boxers to strike each other above the waist with their fists only. On average, they throw around 700–800 punches per match, and land with 30–40% accuracy. The danger comes into play when you realize that the majority of these shots land on the head.

The second is the hard approach to training. To prepare for matches, boxers spend a lot of time sparring hard and further absorbing full-blown body and headshots. These repetitive blows are what ultimately lead the cumulative damage and injuries.

There is a safe approach to boxing. Some people are enrolling in it to improve their fitness, learn how to fight, and enhance their self-defense abilities. They don’t have to spar hard and often to master the art of boxing, so the injuries are quite lower. But on the other side, professional boxers are the ones who suffer the most both in training and competition.

As a result, boxing imposes a great risk when it comes to head injuries, notably brain traumas such as CTE.

What Are The Most Common Injuries in Boxing?

According to studies, 70% of boxing injuries both in competition and training were to the head with almost half of the injuries being concussions (47%). The other study suggests facial lacerations account for 51% of all injuries.

Let’s take a closer look at the most common injuries and why they happen.

Lacerations and cuts

Lacerations, open cuts, and severe bleeding are, unfortunately, a part of just about every boxing match. These injuries are often caused when leather, full-padded gloves impact the head and tear the skin. Although the cutman would apply vaseline to injury-prone areas such as around the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth, small or deep cuts are almost impossible to prevent.

Lacerations and cuts are not life-threatening injuries. But in a lot of cases, require additional medical care in the hospital or backstage. Or in other words, these injuries often cause the ringside physician to stop the match because the bleeding might be too severe or the cut may lead to some other, more serious injury to the eyes for example.

Concussions

Concussions are both among the most common and dangerous injuries in boxing, and combat sports in general. But boxing imposes a great risk in particular as the majority of strikes land directly on the head. A direct, full-blown impact carrying a force can instantly cause a concussion. In other cases, this type of injury might be caused due to repeated strikes to the head.

Symptoms are quite clear in most cases. A concussed boxer would appear to be confused, or not able to respond to basic questions. There are also scenarios of a hidden concussion that can be diagnosed by good physiotherapists. This is crucial in preventing further damage in the long run. If you suffer a concussion or think you have the symptoms of one, be sure to attend the doctor’s office as soon as possible.

Fractures

Minor and severe fractures are common in boxing. This is not a huge surprise considering the sport emphasizes full-blow punches to the head and body. A well-placed punch can easily break the orbital bone or nose or even break the jaw. Despite being in a lot of pain, most boxers would continue like nothing had happened, and are often too tough for their own good.

The other common fracture is the “Bennett’s” fracture, or a break in the forearm or wrist’s radius bone. This one happens when a punch hits on a hard object such as the opponent’s skull or tibia and will cause instant pain and swelling. This is also how boxers break their knuckles and fingers in just about every match.

Next, a well-placed body shot to the rib cage can easily break the opponent’s rib. This will force them to throw in the towel because the pain would be too big and they wouldn’t be able to stand up straight.

Shoulder dislocation

Shoulder dislocation happens when a humerus bone “dislocates” from the scapula (shoulder blade) due to the heavy impact on the body. It instantly causes sharp pain, limited range of motion, and changes in the physical appearance of the shoulder.

It no longer looks rounded but rather square due to the separation of the joint. Depending on the injury, there could be anterior, posterior, or inferior shoulder dislocations, and these are all equally painful.

And since boxers heavily rely on their hands and shoulders, suffering a dislocation in the middle of the fight means you can no longer defend the right way, and the fight would be stopped.

Bruises and contusions

Bruises and cuts are part of every sport, notably the ones that include physical contact. There is no way you can play soccer, or engage in any martial art without dealing with bruises and cuts.

This is notably true for boxing where people blast each other with hard punches on a daily basis and put their bodies through huge stresses.

How To Stay Injury Free in Boxing?

Although boxing is a dangerous sport, there is a lot you can do to minimize the damage, and stay healthy. In some cases, you can even stay injury free if you are careful and have the right approach to training and recovery.

The following are some proven tips on how to stay healthy in boxing and prevent injuries.

Always wear protective gear

In training, you should always wear full protective gear whenever you are doing anything that increases the risk of injuries such as sparring or live drills against the training partner. Boxing protective gear includes:

• Full-padder sparring gloves
• Mouthguard
• Groin guard (cup)
• Handwraps
• Padded headguard

Wearing protective gear in sparring significantly reduces the risks and minimizes damage. If you are an amateur, you should spar with gear most of the time, and without it on rare occasions. The head guard for instance absorbs most of the impact and prevents cuts and fractures even when the punches are hard.

In combination with the right training partners and light contact, there is a high possibility you will stay injury-free.

Pick the right sparring partners

Sparring is safe, fun, and playful as long as you are dancing with the right training partner. By this, we mean a person who knows how to control power in their shots, never approaches sparring as a real fight, and is never trying their best to win at all costs.

Each boxing school has a person who has a tendency to go hard each time. These people do not even hesitate from using cheap shots to hurt you and are always trying to win to feed their egos. As a newcomer, you will easily spot them in the gym, or experience their attitude firsthand. Be sure to stay away from sparring with them and pick the training partners that suit your style and approach the best.

Sparring with those bullies can quickly get out of control and become a proper fight, which often results in one of the students getting knocked out or hurt badly.

Sparring is a method of teaching. A workout where you learn how to apply techniques against a fully resisting opponent. It is not and should not be considered a match.

Do not spar hard all the time

Sparring is the biggest contributor to the high rate of injuries in boxing in training. People rarely get hurt working on the heavy bag or while hitting the pads. Sparring is the activity where the most injuries occur. And the math is simple–the more you search for trouble by sparring hard, the more you are going to find out.

Getting into a hard sparring session from time to time is beneficial. This is notably true if you are preparing for matches. But you don’t have to do it hard and without the gear each and every time. This is unnecessary both from the point of learning and staying healthy. Yes, hard sparring gives you that adrenalin rush like nothing else out there, but at what cost?

Eventually, your body will fail you at some point and you will get hurt. It’s not a matter of whether you are going to or not, but rather when and how badly. Be smart and methodical instead.

Plan your recovery days well

Boxing training sessions are intense and put a lot of stress on your body. The more you train, the more rest you need to take to let the body recover itself so that you can always perform at the optimum level and stay healthy.

But don’t just sit at home the entire day doing nothing. Instead, do a light stretching workout or go for a walk or jog around the area. These low-impact workouts will keep the blood flowing through the muscles, which keeps the muscles warm and speeds up recovery.

Not recovering well leads to overtraining, over usage of the muscles, which leads increased risk of injuries.

Eat and sleep well

In order to maximize your performance and stay away from injuries, the body needs proper nutrients, vitamins, minerals, water, and sleep. First, eating healthy food gives you more energy in training. It enables you to work harder and be more focused. Next, by balancing the nutrients, you will stay at the optimum weight, or maybe lose pounds if that is your goal. But above all, healthy food improves your overall health and prevents injuries and diseases.

Instead of eating street food all the time, start slowly adopting healthy eating habits. Add more well-balanced meals rich in protein, healthy fat, carbs, and other nutrients. Water is also important because boxing is cardio intense and you will sweat a lot. Giving the body at least 3 liters of water every day speeds up the recovery process and prevents dehydration.

But all of this means nothing without good sleep. In fact, sleep is the single most important factor when it comes to recovery. As an active boxer, you should have no less than 7 or 8 hours of good sleep every night to stay healthy.

How to recover faster from boxing workouts?

If you are having a hard time recovering from boxing workouts, some of the following techniques and tips might help you speed up the process, and ultimately, hit the gym more often.

Warm up and cool down

It is crucial to start each boxing workout, both in the gym and at home with a proper warm-up. This is crucial because you need to “prepare” the muscles and heart rate before intense physical activity. The same stands for a post-workout cooldown. You should always do some static stretching while the muscles are still warmed and focus on slowly lowering the heart rate.

Stretching workouts

Ideally, boxing practitioners stretch at least once a day, in the morning or evening, regardless of whether they had trained that day or not. First, stretching each day keeps the muscles limber, makes you more flexible and improves your range of motion. This further improves other aspects such as balance and coordination. Next, it also removes the waste which can accumulate from intense workouts.

Use ice baths and packs

Alright, this method is not pleasant for most people. But it is probably the most effective way you can recover from muscle soreness and inflammation. Intense training causes micro-tears of muscle fibers. This then causes lactic acid and cortisol to build up, which results in inflammation. Using ice baths or applying ice packs to specific areas reduces inflammation, but does not stop it. Using various sports cold creams is also very beneficial. If you want a good intro into the world of ice baths check out Wim Hof.

Heat therapy

Although heating therapy is the total opposite of cold, it does the same thing. Heat therapy such as getting into a sauna will improve blood circulation, especially in the “damaged” areas due to the increased temperature. Like ice baths, this also reduces inflammation and speeds up recovery. There are also other options such as using sports heat creams, heat pads, and other tools.

Massage/Foam roll after a workout

Getting a proper massage is, perhaps, the most beneficial post-workout method you can use to recover. A skilled massagist is able to spot even the slightest tightness in your muscles, the ones you can’t reach while foam rolling or self-massage. On top of that, it is scientifically proven that massages cause the brain to produce more serotonin, a hormone responsible for happiness.

Using foam rollers or massage guns is also very beneficial as it enables you to target specific muscle groups.

Is Boxing Safe For Kids?

Boxing classes for children are designed to be safe, playful, and beneficial. Youth boxers never engage in hard sparring sessions or intense physical contact of any kind where they can sustain serious injuries. The focus is on developing a proper technique, improving physical and mental strength, and developing strong discipline. However, in the long run, boxing might prove as a dangerous sport for every child. 

The risks of serious neurological injuries occur as soon as they start sparring. Once they grow up and start competing as amateur boxers, they will start absorbing more damage. 

Final Thoughts

Boxing is a very popular sport, well spread all around the world, but also a very dangerous one. If you compare it with other combat sports and martial arts, it carries the highest risk of head injuries which may impact your health in the long run. However, boxing can be very beneficial and safe if you approach it the right way, and put an extra focus on safety.

First, you should be wearing protective gear whenever you are doing anything that could lead to potential injuries, such as sparring. Next, you should pick your training partners well, and avoid sparring with gym bullies but rather choose the one that fits your style. Lastly, take care of your body outside of the gym as well. Be sure to always give it enough rest, healthy food, and other nutrients, drink enough water, and of course, sleep.

However, don’t enroll in boxing thinking you won’t get hurt. In the end, this is an activity where people punch each other for fun.