Watch: A Heavy Bag Round on the Fundamentals, Jab, Cross and Hooks to the Body

No fancy combinations in this one. The Shadow Boxing App is a boxing workout app that runs your rounds for you: it keeps the clock, calls the punches and you throw them. In this short video the boxer is on the heavy bag and the app sticks to the fundamentals: jab, cross, stiff jab, 3 to the body, 4 to the body. The app screen is overlaid on the clip so you can see each callout as he reacts to it.

If the numbers are new to you, 1 is the jab, 2 is the cross, 3 is the lead hook and 4 is the rear hook. Add “body” and the hook goes to the ribs instead of the head. A stiff jab is a jab you sit down on, thrown with more weight behind it to stop someone in their tracks rather than to measure distance. Five punches is not many, and that is the point. A round like this is where you find out whether your jab comes back to your chin every time and whether you bend your knees for the body hooks instead of dipping your head. Fix those here and everything you build on top of them gets better.

The video was filmed during the shoot for Round Zero, a short film and photo series we made with photographer Guillaume Flandre and a boxer from the community, in the same gym as the photos.

You do not need a bag to run this round. Pick a workout built on the basics, or set up a few rounds of jab, cross and body hooks yourself, and shadow box them with the app calling the shots. It is free to try, so download it and do a round before your next session.