Apollos Boxing tips – Boxing on the back foot, first of all I will explain what boxing on the back foot means. Basically boxing on the back foot just means when you are not being the aggressive boxer but more moving around the outside of the ring boxing from long range and either pot shotting your opponent from the outside and getting your opponent to fall in giving you the option to counter punch.
Amateur boxing used to mainly benefit a taller boxer who could effectively use his jab to land a clean scoring jab and then move their feet out of range of your attacks and counter attacks, the scoring system of amateur boxing used to give the taller boxer and advantage as the jab is the easiest shot to see land. If your head got snapped back this shot would definitely score, for this reason boxing on the back foot is still the main way most amateur boxing gyms train their boxers.
Many great amateur and professional boxers have made a career of boxing on the back foot and this is one style of boxing that we work down at Apollos Boxing in Bolton, below we will outline some of the advantages of boxing on the back foot.
Keeps your opponent moving – When boxing on the back foot you will be moving around the ring more which means that your opponent won’t be able to set their feet as easily to land a big shot and a lot of boxers won’t or can’t throw punches against a moving target imagine hunting and trying to shoot a static target or slow moving target like a bull or trying to shoot a fast moving target that changes direction like a rabbit!
Can buy yourself time – In a boxing match either amateur, professional or even a white collar fight you might want to buy yourself sometime either you might be easily winning the round or the fight and just move your feet around the ring and cruise to the end of round bell. You may also get caught with a good shot and just move around the ring to buy yourself some time and give yourself time to recover!
Your opponent might struggle with this style – At Apollos Boxing we like to teach our boxers as many different boxing styles as possible including boxing on the back foot, some boxers cannot deal with boxers who move on the back foot and just want to engage on the inside or stand toe to toe. If you get a boxer who does not like a boxer who moves on the back foot and they come across a back foot boxer the opponent usually starts to over commit and to fall in allowing the back foot boxer to counter effectively.
As you can see there are a lot of advantages of boxing on the back foot but like we always say at Apollos Boxing there is no right and wrong technique in a boxing match just a right and a wrong time to use that technique. We teach our boxers how to box in all different ways it’s like giving the boxers more weapons to use so when it comes to the fight they can use which ever weapon is more effective in that situation!
If you like some more information on boxing training or would like to book in for a one to one pad session or a small boxing group class then please feel free to contact us down at Apollos Boxing in Bolton.