Do you love boxing? A lot of people find that boxing is one of the best workouts they can do to achieve their fitness goals. I have to admit though, there are a lot of people out there who are quite confused about buying the right free standing punching bag.

It pains me to see so many people getting the wrong boxing equipment. Hopefully, this article will help you save you time, and money from making any serious mistakes. We’ll share some of the best information you may need when searching for a free standing punching bag for sale. Of course, we need to see what the advantages are between a free standing punching bag versus a regular boxing bag. We found most people don’t want to drill into their walls or could be moving between homes so a portable punching bag is a good idea. Another common reason nowadays is that some people just simply don’t have the space in their room or home, so size is sometimes the most important factor to them.

A lot of our customers share the same problem of not wanting to touch their walls. Some have said that they might not have the authority from their landlords because they’re renting. We also have many customers who pride their homes so they prefer not to punch holes into the walls. So, don’t worry - you are not alone.

I’m going to cover a few areas that will help you know what to look for in a free standing punching bag. These are:

• The intended use.

• The overall size or shape.

• The stability and quality

• The base and capacity.

• The warranty.

A Brief Peek into the Free Standing Punching Bag

First, let’s look at how the free standing punching bag have come about over the years. Free standing punching bags have been a very popular piece of equipment for homes, businesses, and gyms.

There are a lot of reasons why hanging a boxing bag has its advantages though. If you go into a professional boxing gym or a martials arts studio, you’re more likely to see a lot of hanging bags that are fixed to walls and the reason for this is that they are probably used more for specific training. There are a lot of different types of punching bags on the market so the flexibility to easily swap a punching bag on a hook offers this. This is a huge distinction. This leads us to the first area of advice, the intended use.

What do you want to get out of the free standing punching bag?

Knowing the intended use can definitely help build your confidence in choosing the right product. Here are a couple of common questions you might ask yourself in getting started:

• How long would you use it for each session?

• Do you want to replicate the gym intensity? e.g how hard do you want to hit it?

• Who is it for? Kids or adults or a mix.

A good example is a class called Kimax. This is a class where you strike a free standing punching bag when an instructor yells out the combinations or the movements to strike the designated spot on numbers. This is quite a fun and a high paced environment. We get people who go to these classes and they want to replicate this style of workout at home or bring with them that intense feeling into their workout routine.

So, the intended use is pretty important. It is always best to start your search with knowing what you need from a free standing punching bag.  A helpful hint to knowing your intended use is asking who will be mostly using the punching bag. For example, when children learn martial arts, some kids don’t need such a hard surface, so you might want a free standing punching bag with a different flex or bounce for added safety.

Size Does Matter

Sometimes it can be difficult to think about the shape and size you want as there are a lot of different types out there. You might be aware of one called the Bob-man. Bob (not sure how he got this name) has got a latex face with visible facial features and a human torso as its shape. Some people really like this because they think they’re getting a more realistic target practice while striking certain points of the face, the head, or the torso.

In our experience, we’ve had people who are doing martials arts and they want to specifically target an area of the body to practice their techniques. So, this more realistic and imaginative training style might affect what type of shape of the bag you might want to look for. Otherwise, there are also cylindrical bags which are basically shaped like a boxing bag and that are made from dense foam with a vinyl cover. Some may even have printed numbers on them which makes it helpful for anyone wanting to replicate the Kimax classes (mentioned earlier) or to help motivate children train.

Then, you’ve got all sorts of different weird shapes, such as torsos or thinner cylinders and can range from 4ft-5ft. There can be a big difference in prices. A key thing to remember is that the price is a good indication of the quality, so always have that in mind.

Then there’s the free standing punching speedball that sits on a thin flexi type neck or stick with a speedball on top. I don’t fully classify this as a free standing punching bag but often do get this comparison or confusion among the inquiries we get.

Materials + Quality = Stability

We all want the best quality but at the cheapest price! Unfortunately it is really hard to find that with this type of product. For an item that will be expected to take a bashing, the quality must be excellent. The material and workmanship defines how good it will perform and last. One example is the foam material I touched on earlier. There are different types of foams you can get. Its denseness and how thick it is will determine how much of a pounding it can take. The outer cover where it takes all the strikes needs to be exceptionally durable.

Imagine finally receiving your new free standing punching bag and only after a few hits its starts to fall apart? You would be gutted, pissed off and extremely disappointed!

You’ve got to make sure that the product you buy has everything you want in it, even if it might cost you a bit more. People change, stop and start training for all sorts of reasons so by making sure that it will grow with you or for the family will help you save money in the long run.

The neck support that attaches the bag to the base is critical. If that is flimsy the bag is not going to hold well in the long term. Length wise it could be as short as 40cm and these could adjust to different heights. The full sized free standing punching bags are the best due to the size of the neck support that matches the size of the actual foam padding. These range from typically around 1.2m – 1.4m. Keep an eye out for the details of the neck support if height is a concern for you.

Let’s talk about the base and capacity

One of the most critical pieces of the free standing punching bag is the base and the capacity it can hold. The base will determine how strong and how durable the free standing punching bag will be in terms of balance and support. The larger the base and the more capacity you can fill in the base, the better. We have seen a lot of bases out there that have poorly designed molds and because a lot of these are made out of plastic you need to be aware how thick the plastic base walls are.

When it comes to filing the base, a frequent question that we get is, “how do you fill up the free standing punching bag base or what should it be filled up with?” A lot of posts you’ll see online do talk about putting sand in the base or other things that aren’t liquid. However, can you imagine emptying almost 100 litres worth of sand? It wouldn’t be very fun and makes it a lot less portable! Typically the free standing base capacity should be between 80 to 100 litres.

What we recommend to our customers is that they first fill the base with water. We’ve even had customers who’ve used old motor oil which is probably due to the viscosity and weight. But water is usually the best option and you can either stop at any point or fill it up all the way. So the general rule of thumb is the more capacity it can hold the more heavy it will be and therefore more stable.

Warranty – What if something breaks?!?

There are a lot of cheap free standing punching bags online and one of the biggest fears customers have is that they are afraid of receiving a product that is not as described or as advertised online. They’re afraid that the product may not meet their expectations and have to jump through hoops to get any help. So I’m sure you’d want some assistance if something goes wrong after buying your new free standing punching bag.

Here are some common known issues; the base mold leaks due to poor injection molding, the neck breaks or starts to crack from repeated strikes, or the punching bag cover begins to wear or tear due to poor materials.

Free standing punching bags are very big products in size, so the boxes are quite large. Shipping them around, in our experience, is quite expensive in Australia, so you want to make sure that if you do have a concern, that you can take it back somewhere or have some type of guarantee within the first 14 to 21 days, at least.

So there you have it, that’s our tips on how you can save time and money when buying the right free standing punching bag. We hope you’ve enjoyed this information and that it helps you avoid making any critical mistakes when buying your first or next free standing punching bag.

Check out our most popular range of punching bags while you are here.