Every gym should have a few heavy bags. It would be better if there is a section dedicated to punching bags and relevant exercises.
Why? You might ask. These simple bags can act as strength training equipment, a cardio exercise option, or your sparring partner for boxing and kickboxing practice.
A simple big bag, hanging from the ceiling or a bar at the top, filled with sand or rags can be a fun way to burn some extra calories instead of monotonous and boring cardio sessions on the treadmills. While burning the extra fat, it is also a mentally relaxing exercise.
Searching for ‘gyms with heavy bags near me’ might cough up the list of boxing gyms in the area. These gyms aren’t like your regular gyms with resistance and cardio training equipment and all other relevant facilities. Boxing gyms are goal specific training clubs for boxers that cost much more than regular gyms.
What you need is a regular gym with punching bags. Though we wish that all the gyms should be with boxing bags, it is not the case. It is tough to find a good gym with a heavy bag in your vicinity. So, let us help you find a gym with punching bags near you.
What Gyms Have Punching Bags?
There are your local standalone gyms that have a single location, and then there are the big box national gym chains that are everywhere. In your search for gyms with heavy bags near you, there is a higher possibility that you find one among the big chain gyms.
There are many local gyms that do have punching bags these days, but as there are no standard practices for them, you can’t be sure about their offerings till you try them for some time. You can call and check or visit the place to know about the availability of heavy bags at the local gym near you.
Among the big chain gyms, they have a standard set of equipment, services, and facilities at all their locations. You will find the availability and quality of everything in these gyms consistent in most of the locations. This stands true for unconventional equipment like heavy bags too.
The punching bag workouts being too loud and seemingly aggressive, not all big gyms have them. The kicking, punching, and grunting while doing that may be distracting to other members of the gym, thus it needs to be installed in an isolated area.
It is also recommended that the members do use the heavy bags under the observation of experienced trainers as there is a great chance of misusing the bags and developing an injury.
Due to these limiting factors, very few gym chains have heavy bags. Here is the list of big gyms where you are most likely to find boxing bags.
Equinox
They don’t just have a few heavy bags hanging there, but also offer boxing and martial arts classes. Few locations offer cardio and upper body focussed no-equipment boxing workouts. Furthermore studios by Equinox have water filled punching bags that are more forgiving than the sand filled bags, thus can be safely used by novices and pros.
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Crunch Fitness
With Crunch Fitness, you don’t have to do any guesswork about at which location you might find some heavy bags. They have a good number of boxing bags at every location. They also offer boxing and MMA classes. So, if you want to join a gym with heavy bags and boxing classes, you can join Crunch Fitness near you.
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Life Time Fitness
Most of the Life Time locations have a separate boxing studio. Filled with full size boxing bags, these studios are a treat for those who like to punch the bag as a part of the exercise. They also offer boxing and kickboxing classes.
Snap Fitness
In their up-gradation of the gym facilities done a few years ago, Snap Fitness added punching and kicking bag areas. The 30-minute boxing classes are available at many locations up to thrice a week.
Gold’s Gym
Whether you are just looking for a fun way to perform calorie burning cardio or training for a boxing match, you can find all you need at Gold’s Gym. They have a boxing area and offer a complete heavy bag boxing kit.
LA Fitness
Most of the LA fitness locations have standard 150-pound sand filled boxing bags. A few locations have water filled heavy bags. If you are used to punching bag workouts, both are fine for you, but if you are new to this, joining a location with water filled punching bag would be better for you.
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YMCA
Among the gym chains, YMCA might be most inconsistent in terms of facilities and amenities at different locations. At many YMCA locations you don’t even need to bring your gear, they offer everything like bags, gloves, wraps, etc.
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Note:
Even if it is said that most of the locations of the gyms mentioned here have heavy bags and allied facilities, but still, you should take a tour of the location near you to check before paying for the membership. You can get benefited from a free trial period to check all you need by actually using it.
The quantity and quality of the equipment and other facilities can also vary from location to location. Make sure you check the state of the heavy bags and other equipment too.
How To Find A Gym Near You With Heavy Bags
How you find a gym with boxing bags depends on what exactly you are looking for. If you want a boxing specific gym, simply searching for boxing gyms on a search engine will give you tons of results. You can choose a few in your area and visit them for deciding which one to join.
For those who are serious about boxing and martial arts, it is better to join these boxing gyms rather than joining traditional gyms with punching bags. These may cost higher than regular gyms, but it is the place where you can actually develop boxing skills.
In such gyms, most of the time you will be training with punching bags and sparring partners on your punching and kicking skills. At other times, when you are working outside the rings, using other exercise equipment, then too, you will be working out on improving the strength and agility needed for boxing or MMA.
If you are looking for a gym that has all the cardio and resistance training equipment like a regular gym and also has some heavy bags then you might have to take some more effort.
Most of the locations the commercial gym chains mentioned in this article do have heavy bags. You can find a branch of any gym among these in your area.
You can use the following approach to zero in on a gym with a boxing bag near you.
- Search for ‘gyms with heavy bags near me’
- Select those which do offer a free trial pass or a trial pass at a nominal price
- Visit these gyms, take a tour, try out all the facilities they offer
- Now visit the gyms that don’t offer a trial pass to compare
- Finalize the one which fulfills all your requirements from a gym with punching bags
Visiting the gyms that offer free trial period access to the gym and classes gives you a chance to experience the facilities first hand. It also gives you a clear idea about how to compare the equipment and classes. So, when you visit the gyms that don’t offer free passes, you can still compare them by just doing a tour of the facility.
All this information combined with membership price, amenities in the gym, classes offered and their schedule, and vicinity to your location can be used to select the optimum gym for you.
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Final Words
Your search for a gym with a punching bag near you may land you with a bunch of irrelevant results on the internet.
To avoid going through all that clutter and saving some time, we recommend you to go for Equinox, Crunch Fitness, Life Time Fitness, or the nearby locations of other gyms mentioned in this article. Visit a few gyms before committing to one.
If you are serious about taking up boxing as a career the instead of going to some regular gyms with heavy bags, you should join a specialty gym for boxing and MMA.
If you already are a member of some gym, then instead of changing the gym, you can just buy a punching bag and hang it in the garage, if it is feasible.
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