As thanksgiving and christmas breaks are upon us, I'm going to be going home for a while(at college). Usually I do elliptical or running for my cardio. I found a heavy bag(70 lbs) for $10 at a yard sale. I was thinking about punching it for about 30 minutes a day. I'm sure I'll need resting periods, but can this be quality cardio? Just wanted to hear what people thought.

Excellent cardio.

Here's some ideas to use circuits

http://www.rossboxing.com/thegym/thegym24.htm

I did youth boxing for a couple of years and one of the drills the instructor had us do was to get in fairly close to the bag and hit it with the following sequence: left hook, right hook, left uppercut, right uppercut, repeat. So, you'll be continuously punching the bag, rotating your torso back and forth by a few degrees with each punch.

Like the article Canada linked to mentioned, you have to hit the bag hard every time. One of the things that is tough about boxing for cardio is that keeping your intensity up requires a lot of will power. When you are running on a treadmill, the machine dictates your intensity to you once you've programmed it - you have to keep it up just to keep your legs underneath you. To a lesser extent this is true with ellipticals or stationary bikes too - you at least have the machine's feedback about RPMs or MPH to reassure you that your intensity is not flagging. But in boxing, there's nothing to tell you that you're still hitting the bag hard, although if you have a heart rate monitor I'm sure it'd help as far as intensity feedback goes.

Good luck, and enjoy!

To really step it up, try a kick boxing workout. Combining punches with kicks at the bag makes for an intensive cardio workout. Im my Karate school, we alternate punches and kicks for two minutes, followed by two minutes of stretching or ab exercises. Make sure you do not lock your joints when punching or kicking.

Great workout. If you hit that bag for 30 minutes it'll feel like it's hitting you back.:nod: