Box yourself fit!

How would you like a good fun work-out which burns calories, tones you up AND reduces stress? Why not try a bit of boxing! Boxing is a personal favourite of mine as it's brilliant for improving cardiovascular fitness, toning arms and shoulders, improving balance and co-ordination and relieving stress. It's also great if you don't have much space and/or no equipment. Just 30 minutes of boxing can burn up to 300 calories (as well as the toning!). Check out these 4 options:

1. Let's Pretend! Shadow boxing is perfect if you have no-one to spar with and/or no equipment to use. It's easy, all you need to do is pretend you're boxing... in effect you are simply fighting the air! You can add jumps, twists and jogging-on-the-spot to add more variety and/or increase intensity.
2. Join a class. Most health clubs or leisure centres offer combat or boxing style classes which will teach you the moves (then you can practice the shadow boxing more effectively) and gives you a great work-out. Look out for classes such as 'Boxercise', 'Box-Fit', 'Taebo' or 'Body Combat'.
3. Train together. Another home one (or some gyms may have gloves and pads you can use), all you need is a boxing set (usually about £20), a partner to train with and away you go! Even holding the pads gives a good work-out, remember to push into the gloves a little as your partner punches the pads to reduce risk of injury. I do a lot of pad work in my personal training which many ladies really enjoy and definitely feel the benefits.
4. Turn on the telly! A great way to keep motivation high when training at home is to buy a fitness dvd, but as soon as you start to get bored of it...buy a new one! They cost about £12 each (or older ones can be cheaper, try online) and should last about 2 months before you start to tire of it, so all in all a good cheap way to box.