Rock Steady Boxing®-Style Exercises You Can Practice at Home

Health information, not medical advice. Talk with your doctor before starting a new exercise program.

Quick answer: The heart of what makes Rock Steady Boxing® classes work — big, powerful, intentional movement — travels home just fine. Between classes (or when a gym is out of reach), the highest-value boxing-style work you can do at home is: shadowboxing with exaggerated punches, boxing footwork drills near a counter for support, seated combination work on hard days, and loud counting to train your voice alongside your body. Ten to twenty minutes counts. Below is a coach’s home routine, the safety rules that are not optional, and the honest line about what home practice can and can’t replace.

Written by an official affiliate coach

One of the most common questions I get after class isn’t about class at all. It’s some version of: “What should I do on the other days?”

I love this question. It means the program is working — the person asking has stopped thinking of exercise as a place they visit and started thinking of it as something they do. So here’s my full answer, the same one my own members get.

First, the safety rules — not optional

Home training with Parkinson’s has different risks than a coached class, so these come first:

Doctor’s clearance before starting any exercise program. Said every time, meant every time.
Anchor yourself. Do standing work next to a kitchen counter, heavy table, or sturdy chair back you can grab instantly. Not a folding chair. Not a rolling office chair.
Clear the floor. Rugs that slide, cords, pets underfoot — the fall-prevention basics apply double when you’re moving with intention.
Train your “on” time. Schedule home practice when your medication has you moving well.
A rough day changes the workout, not whether you move. Everything below has a seated version. Use it without shame — seated boxing is a real workout.

The home routine: 15–20 minutes

1. Warm-up (3–4 minutes). March in place (seated or standing), roll the shoulders, reach tall overhead — really tall, fingertips fighting for the ceiling — circle the ankles. Wake everything up before asking it to work.

2. Shadowboxing (4–5 minutes). Stand (or sit) with your anchor point in reach. Throw slow, deliberate punches at the air — jab, cross, jab-jab-cross — and make every single one as big as you can make it. Full extension. Exaggerated. Bigger than feels normal, because with Parkinson’s, “bigger than feels normal” is usually just normal — the disease quietly shrinks your movements and recalibrates your sense of size, which is exactly the principle that therapist-led programs like LSVT BIG are built around. Speed matters far less than size and intention.

3. Count out loud — loudly (the whole time). “ONE-TWO! ONE-ONE-TWO!” at a volume that feels almost rude. Parkinson’s softens the voice so gradually most people don’t notice, and voice training works on the same use-it-loudly principle as movement training. In my classes the counting is half the workout; at home, nobody’s listening except the disease, so let it hear you.

4. Footwork (3–4 minutes, counter within reach). Boxing stance — one foot slightly back, knees soft. Step forward-and-back, then side-to-side, deliberately and BIG. Shift your weight fully onto each leg. If balance is shaky today, keep one hand on the counter the entire time; the drill still works.

5. Sit-to-stands (2–3 minutes). From a firm chair, stand up and sit down slowly, arms crossed if you’re able, hands on thighs if you need the help. This is the single most functional strength exercise a person with Parkinson’s can do — it is getting off the toilet, out of the car, up from dinner. Boxers call it leg day; I call it independence work.

6. Cool-down (2 minutes). Slow reaches, gentle twists, deep breaths — and one more LOUD count of ten to finish, because ending big matters.

That’s it. Done three or four times a week between classes, this routine is a genuine contribution to the 2.5+ hours of weekly exercise the Parkinson’s Foundation recommends — and I’ve watched members who added consistent home practice come back to class noticeably sharper, month over month.

What home practice can’t replace — the honest part

I’d be a poor coach if I told you a living room could do everything a gym does. Three things it can’t:

Coaching eyes. At my four affiliate gyms, we watch how you move and correct in real time — the shrinking punch, the drifting posture, the balance drill that needs a modification this week. Home practice reinforces what coaching builds; it doesn’t build it alone.

Equipment and resistance. Air offers no feedback. Pads, bags, and mitt work develop power, timing, and coordination in ways shadowboxing approximates but doesn’t match.

The room. The thing members tell me they’d miss most isn’t the equipment — it’s the people. Accountability, laughter, the sound of twenty people counting punches together. A 2025 review of boxing programs for Parkinson’s noted remarkably high adherence, and I’d bet the room is most of why. Home practice is the between, not the instead.

So the honest formula: coached classes as the foundation, home practice as the multiplier.

If you want structure at home

Two clarity notes wrapped in one recommendation. If you want guided home workouts — follow-along videos, seated and standing, new ones added regularly — that’s exactly why I built the Boxing for Balance online video program. To keep the names straight, as I always do: the online program is Boxing for Balance, my own separate program — not Rock Steady Boxing. The licensed Rock Steady Boxing programs I run are the in-gym classes at my Santa Monica, Lake Balboa, Woodland Hills, and Thousand Oaks affiliate locations. Same coach, same “make it big” philosophy — different programs, and you deserve to know which is which.

And if you’re local and haven’t tried a class yet, the first one is free — come learn the drills with coaching eyes on you, then take them home. That’s the order that works.

Now go throw ten big, loud punches at the air. I mean today, before you close this tab — stand up (or sit tall), find your anchor point, and count them out at full volume. The disease doesn’t take rest days, and neither does the fight. Ten punches. Go.

A simple weekly template

Members who thrive usually settle into a rhythm like this — adjust freely to your class schedule and your body:

Monday: class day (gym)
Tuesday: 15-minute home routine above
Wednesday: class day (gym)
Thursday: rest, or a walk with deliberately big steps
Friday: home routine, full version, extra-loud counting
Saturday: something you love that moves you — garden, dance in the kitchen, chair exercises on a low day
Sunday: true rest

That pattern lands right around the recommended weekly exercise total without any single heroic session — which is the entire secret. Parkinson’s is not defeated in one great workout; it’s held back by a hundred ordinary ones. Write the template on the fridge, check days off with a marker, and let the streak itself become something you defend.