See Two-Phase Attacks in Action: Combo, Defend, Combo Again

The Shadow Boxing App calls out punches, defenses, and movement while you train, so a session is closer to a real exchange than to mindlessly running the same combo. This clip shows the 2 Phase Attacks exercise, and the idea is right there in the name: throw a combo, defend, then throw another one.

That middle beat is what makes it useful. In an actual fight you almost never get to land a long, uninterrupted string of punches. You attack, the other person answers, and you have to deal with their reply before you can go again. Most beginners drill combos in a vacuum and build a habit of attacking with no thought for what comes back, which falls apart the moment someone punches at them. Forcing a block or a slip in between the two combos trains the reflex to cover up right after you punch, then reset and attack again on a fresh angle. If you want to go deeper on the defensive half of this, the piece on training boxing defense at home covers how blocks, slips, and rolls fit into a workout.

You can run this exercise yourself in the app, along with plenty of others that mix offense and defense the same way. It is free to download and there is a lot you can train without paying, so give it a try and work a few rounds of attack, defend, attack.