How to Breathe When Boxing (And Why You're Probably Doing It Wrong)

Nobody teaches you how to breathe when boxing. You walk into a gym, learn to throw a jab, maybe get shown how to wrap your hands - but breathing? That just sort of gets left to figure out on your own. Which is a problem, because bad breathing is the number one reason beginners gas out after two rounds of padwork.

We see it at Honour & Glory all the time. Someone comes in fit - they run, they lift weights, they can handle a spin class - but sixty seconds of combination work and they're bent over with their hands on their knees. The issue is almost never cardio. It's breathing.

So let's sort it out.

Why breathing matters more than you think

When you get tense or nervous (which happens to everyone who's new to boxing), your body tightens up. Shoulders creep towards your ears, jaw clenches, and you start holding your breath without realising it. You might take one big inhale, throw four or five punches while holding that air in, then gasp for another breath. That's a recipe for burning out fast.

Holding your breath also tenses your muscles unnecessarily. Tense muscles move slower, tire quicker, and produce less power. It sounds backwards, but relaxed boxers hit harder than tense ones. Watch any footage of Floyd Mayweather or Vasyl Lomachenko - their shoulders are loose between punches, and their breathing is steady even under pressure.

The basic rule: exhale when you punch

This is the single most important thing to get right. Every time you throw a punch, you should be breathing out. Short, sharp exhales through the nose or mouth - whatever feels natural. That's the "tssss" or "shh" sound you hear experienced boxers make. It's not for show. That sound is the breath being pushed out in a quick burst.

Each punch gets its own exhale. Throwing a 1-2? That's two sharp breaths out. A 1-2-3-2? Four exhales. Think of it like a piston engine - each stroke has its own exhaust.

Between punches and combinations, you breathe back in. Ideally through the nose, because nasal breathing pulls air deeper into the lungs and delivers oxygen more efficiently than gulping through your mouth. But in the middle of a hard round, mouth breathing happens. Don't stress about it. The exhale on each punch is the bit that matters most.

Slow breathing for slow moments

Boxing has different gears. When you're moving around the ring, resetting between exchanges, or circling on the outside, your breathing should match that pace. Slow, deep breaths in through the nose, slow exhales out. This is where you recover. This is where your heart rate comes back down.

The best boxers in the world look calm even in the middle of a fight because they've trained themselves to breathe slowly whenever they're not actively engaging. They're recovering in real time, saving their anaerobic energy for the moments that count.

You can practise this during shadow boxing. Move around, throw the odd jab, but focus on keeping your breathing slow and controlled between combinations. If you can stay relaxed doing shadow work, it'll carry over when the pressure comes.

How to practise boxing breathing

Here are a few drills that actually help:

Shadow boxing with breath focus. Set a three-minute timer. Throw light combinations, but make your exhales audible on every punch. Between combos, breathe slowly through the nose. Don't worry about anything else - just the breathing.

Heavy bag breath rounds. Hit the bag at about 60% power. The goal isn't to smash it. The goal is to maintain a rhythm where you're exhaling on every shot and recovering between bursts. If you're gasping, slow down.

The "talk test" during padwork. If you can't answer a simple question between combinations, you're holding your breath. At H&G we'll sometimes ask our beginners something mid-round just to check. If all you can manage is a wheeze, we know what needs work.

Diaphragmatic breathing off the clock. Lie on your back, put one hand on your chest and one on your belly. Breathe so the belly hand rises and the chest stays still. This trains you to breathe from your diaphragm rather than taking shallow chest breaths. Five minutes before bed, five minutes when you wake up. It transfers to your boxing more than you'd expect.

What about getting hit?

Here's where breathing gets tricky. When you take a shot to the body, your instinct is to gasp. But gasping with your mouth open and your core loose is exactly how body shots wind you. Experienced boxers keep their jaw closed and their core braced, breathing out through the nose on impact. That braced exhale protects the diaphragm and stops the air being knocked out of you.

This takes time and sparring experience to develop. You won't master it reading an article. But being aware of it early means you'll pick it up faster when the time comes.

The honest truth about breathing and fitness

Proper boxing breathing won't turn you into a machine overnight. But it will stop you wasting energy. Most people who feel unfit during boxing sessions aren't actually unfit - they're just inefficient. They hold their breath, tense up, throw arm punches because their whole body is rigid, and then wonder why they're exhausted.

Fix the breathing and everything else gets easier. Your punches flow better. Your defence improves because you're not panicking. You last longer. You think clearer.

At our gym in Kidbrooke, we coach breathing from day one because we've seen how much difference it makes. If you've been training for a while and still feel like you're drowning after every session, it's worth going back to basics. Strip it back, slow it down, and breathe.

Nobody said boxing was easy. But it shouldn't feel like you're suffocating.