Are Heavy Bag Workouts as Good as Sprinting?

by Nicole Cruz
Boxing fitness workouts are becoming popular with celebrities and fitness enthusiasts alike.


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Boxers and sprinters have a few traits in common -- strong, lean, muscular physiques and lightning fast moves. Heavy bag workouts are no longer just for the professional boxer. Anyone can purchase a heavy bag, hand wraps and gloves for an effective cardio workout at home. With so many books and articles on how to start a sprinting training routine, anyone with a pair of sneakers can start sprinting. Consult your doctor before beginning either of these workouts, and start slowly if you are a newbie.

Boxing Examined

Boxing training workouts incorporate high-intensity cardio, punching drills and traditional resistance training moves, such as push-ups and sit-ups. A complete cardio boxing workout can burn up to 800 calories in an hour. Boxing workouts offer the additional benefit of stress relief -- punching out all your troubles on the heavy bag. Striking the heavy bag develops muscles by offering resistance, causing the muscles to work harder than they would while simply shadow boxing. According to Muscle and Performance, a 30-minute heavy bag session alone burns 500 calories.

Sprinting Examined

Sprinting not only provides the general benefits of a running workout -- increased endurance and speed, increased heart rate and calorie burn -- but also forces the muscles to make gains in strength as it increases the demands placed on those muscles. Sprinting can burn up to 500 calories in ten 10-yard sprints, according to Men’s Fitness. The chance of injury can be a major concern for regular sprinters. Warren Doscher, author of The Art of Sprinting, advises that the best ways to avoid injury are a proper warm-up and cool-down of the primary muscles used in running and proper running shoes.

Heavy Bag vs. Sprinting

In terms of calorie burns, the two workouts can be easily interchanged when used to lose weight and create a deficit in calories as part of an overall workout plan. They are both extremely effective at burning calories, increasing muscle strength and building endurance. The amount of calories burned during a heavy bag workout is similar to sprinting, and the focus of the workout is the same. Both activities will rev up your metabolism and increase the effectiveness of the overall workout. However, if the goal of the sprinting or heavy bag work is part of a plan to optimize performance in that sport, then they should not be interchanged.

Add-on Workouts

If a runner is looking for a new option to add to her workout, something to replace the high-intensity intervals sprinting may have offered, heavy bag boxing is an excellent option. Heavy bag workouts can be an excellent alternative to runners with leg injuries or over-use injuries that still want to challenge their fitness levels. Sprinting is also an excellent add-on to the training plan of a boxer. Roadwork -- running several miles a day -- has been a staple in the boxer's training routine for decades. Adding in sprints with long distance running can help a boxer achieve gains in speed and endurance.

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